


Make gold the face of the moon

by zetsubooty



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: (and srsly I tagged this but I'm not one for gratuitous violence), (more spooky but then I'm jaded), Future Fic, Horror, M/M, Shadows (Persona 4), Slow Build, Slow Burn, Trans Character, because let's not do that, casual abuse of jungian concepts, the character's trans-ness has zip to do w/their shadow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-06-06 17:16:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6762973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubooty/pseuds/zetsubooty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So much can change in five years, not always for the better.</p><p>There's something strange going on in the house three former teammates have ended up living in. The more they unearth, the more disturbing the basement full of broken TVs and odd lab equipment seems. Some truths, especially those guarded closest to the heart, are better left buried. But they may not have much choice in the matter, or in who gets sucked into this strange machine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost and found (pick up, slam down)

**Author's Note:**

> This work is stemming mainly out of the P4 canon, but I'm a horrible magpie and I'm borrowing themes and bits from the whole series so uh. Ye.
> 
> I also wanna give a HUGE thank you to Corey, Allison, and everyone who's been supporting me through workin on this monstrosity. Especially Nhu and L, who have been INVALUABLE in terms of editing and holding my hand through freak-outs.

 

> _Don’t turn around, Yuuto._
> 
> _He can’t breathe. There’s something monstrous behind him, he knows, he knows all up his spine and reflected in the eyes of the others and a thousand gleaming crystals making up the impossible walls and in the awful rasping noise it makes don’t turn around don’t look because there is nothing else for you to do but remain still, stay out of the way he can’t breathe._
> 
> _He can’t quite see the others properly, but he knows, he knows them each by name, knows the one yelling-not-yelling with scarred cheeks, even though his face swims in and out of focus, in and out of the boy he knew and the face of a stranger._
> 
> _Izumi is scared, they’re all scared, someone has to do something. Don’t turn around. But he can’t focus because his chest is so tight, so tight, and when he looks down, he’s bound with ropes like a child’s drawing of a captured prisoner, they’re tight, tight, tight and pulling tighter and pulling at his legs and arms, crushing and wrenching all at once, or perhaps it’s the ground, splitting and shifting with a shatter of notes, and everyone silently crying out and on fire with fear and—_

“…chi…kun…?”

Someone shakes his shoulder ineffectually, but it’s enough, enough to bring him up into consciousness and gasping into the pillow. He lifts his head, wobbly with sleep; he can faintly make out Mihashi’s worried expression hovering at the side of the bed.

_This again? Seriously?_

Still, the first word to tumble out of his mouth is, “Izu…mi??”

Mihashi jumps comically, eyes shooting wide. “N-n… Izumi? I can go… Wait, I can’t…? Wh—”

Sakaeguchi rolls on his back, rubbing between his eyes. “No, just… Nevermind.”

Mihashi dithers at the side of his bed until Sakaeguchi peers over at him. “Just now… Yuuto had a bad dream?”

It takes him a moment longer to collect himself but then he smiles easily. “Yeah, kinda glad you woke me up. What’s…” He feels stupid asking, because he knows what’s wrong. The same things that are always wrong. Or perhaps nothing. Part of him wants to remain stubborn, wait for an answer, but he sighs and pushes back the covers and scooches over. _This’s becoming a habit._ “Couldn’t sleep?” _And I’m sure letting it._

Mihashi nods vigorously, hesitating for only a breath before he slips under the covers. Sakaeguchi can’t blame him in the early spring chill. “S...sorry…” Even in the dimness, it’s obvious he’s been crying. But then he knew that, heard the hushed snuffling on his way back from brushing his teeth.

Sakaeguchi sighs. “’S okay. Just… Ren, maybe next time, don’t wait until the middle of the night?”

Mihashi nods more solemnly, wriggling a little closer. His eyes are downcast, one hand curled on the pillow between them.

Sakaeguchi stares at his miserable face, feeling deeply tired. _I guess there’s no point trying to talk about it now._ He keeps his exasperation out of his expression as much as he can.

And his sudden spike of fear.

Outside in the soft night, he can hear something rustle. Scrape.

Unnerved, Sakaeguchi clutches Mihashi’s hand, dragging it closer on the pillow. Mihashi breathes out a pathetic noise before crowding into his space, rolling and wriggling until he’s backed up against Sakaeguchi. He clutches at the arm Sakaeguchi slings around his chest, fingers vice-tight and a shiver running through him. Sakaeguchi pulls a face into the darkness, but at the same time, he can’t deny the relief of having a warm body in between him and the rest of the world, something alive, definite, known.

Whatever it is outside, it’s sloughing its way up past his window now. He tries desperately not to tense up.

He can’t help thinking of the other occupant of the house, probably fast asleep, albeit with a frown, even after the drama earlier. He opens his eyes to the dim fluffy mass of Mihashi's hair. _Why can’t you go wake_ him _up and actually_ deal _with this?_ Stubbornly, he hauls Mihashi closer, stroking a hand over his ribs.

_They’ll work it out in time. They always do._

He hauls the blankets a little higher, considers slipping a hand over Mihashi’s ear. But that would give away that there's something to hear.

It sounds like a large wet sack being dragged over the ground, although niceties like gravity don’t seem to bother these things overmuch. Out in the backyard, down in the poplars on the quietest nights, and sometimes, sometimes scraping up the side of the house to hang heavy and Present and Aware outside the window. They chitter out almost-speech that he can barely hear but gets under his skin and leaves him jamming the pillow over his head with his guts twisting. And somehow, somehow, he can hear in it the suggestion, the lure, _open the window, come on_. Other times, the noises they make are a sloppy scrabble of animalistic sound punctuated by the terrified cries of some hapless small creature, pursued and caught and whatever comes next, Sakaeguchi doesn’t know because hell if he’s gonna look.

Except he did, one night. And saw nothing but pools of darkness between garbage cans, collecting in drifts against fences, caught in the roots and up the boles of trees. Yet there was an awareness out there somewhere that turned his stomach and made him check the lock on the gable window before pulling the curtains tight and his blanket over his head, phone clutched tight in his fist.

But the other two haven't mentioned anything like this, so why make himself look like a dumbass who can't tell nightmare from reality?

He nearly leaps out of his skin at Mihashi’s quiet, “Yuuto?”

He bumps his forehead against Mihashi’s head, rubbing his palm in slow circles on his chest. At least like this, his nervousness can’t show. “Yeah?”

“…Th-they can’t get in, right?”

* * *

Nobody mentions that the birds don’t return to the poplars or the dishes shoved under the couch.

Well, eventually they mention the dishes. Loudly. It’s never just about the dishes, though.

“He still crying?”

Sakaeguchi jumps even though he’d noticed Abe hunched at the kitchen table. “Not really. Got him distracted rewatching one of Tajima’s interviews, so…” He shrugs, pointedly still looking at the kettle he’s filling. The silence stretches as he plugs it in and fetches himself a mug.

With no further preamble, Abe says, “Is he going to sleep with you again tonight?”

“I—“ It’s not like it was a secret, but Abe’s tone makes it a veiled accusation, makes it feel like he’s been caught in the act. _In_ what _act?_ “…Don’t think so!” He forces _his_ tone to stay light. “I think he’s okay now. More sleep for me!” _If I’m not kept up by those Things again. But I’m sure as heck not talking to_ you _about that, Mr. Can’t Even Handle Something As Irrational As Human Behaviour._

“Can you…” Abe sighs, leaning his elbows on the table and rubbing his eyes. “Will _you_ talk to him? I can’t get through to him, and,” Abe groans, “this is so fucking stupid…”

“ _You_ talk to him.” Sakaeguchi runs his fingers over the boxes of tea, choosing one quickly.

“He’ll just cry again.”

“You will _both_ survive Ren crying.” _Am I being unfair?_

A sigh that turns into a guttural noise. “Yeah, I know, _thanks_.”

In the silence, he can hear the quiet tinny sound of Tajima’s forced bray of laughter. Sakaeguchi taps his fingers on the counter, doing his best to ignore the urge to glance back at Abe. The rush of the kettle slowly swallows Tajima’s voice.

And then cuts off with an oddly solid _thock_ along with the light overhead. There’s a startled squawk from the other side of the wall.

Sakaeguchi sighs. “Not _again_ …”

Abe shoves to his feet with an exasperated hiss, bangs open a drawer for a fuse, then yanks open the heavy wooden door leading into the laundry room. “Got your phone?”

“Yeah, here…” Sakaeguchi hurries to his side, raising his phone so the light shines on the fuse box.

Abe gives the ranks of glass knobs a dirty look; at least now half of them are clearly (one might even say overzealously) labeled, and it takes him only a second to find the one that’s blown. Which is good. Sakaeguchi thinks he can hear something moving.

“Got it?” He doesn’t like the edge creeping into his voice.

“Yeah. Quit fussing.” Abe holds out the dead fuse officiously and drops it into Sakaeguchi’s palm as soon as he holds it out.

Sakaeguchi stares down at the stupid chunk of glass and metal, then shoves it in a pocket.

Light bursts back on in the kitchen and some piece of machinery downstairs comes on with a herculean rumble. The kettle fuzzes back to life too. And then shuts off again.

Abe swats the side of the fuse box, gritting out, “Fuck’s sake…” Sakaeguchi doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone unscrew something viciously before. “Would you shut the damn thing off, or— Just go plug it into the stove!”

Sakaeguchi narrows his eyes but turns before Abe can catch him, slapping his way across the kitchen to do so. “I sure hope it’s making you feel better to snip at me, because—” He trails off; he’s pretty sure Abe isn’t listening, and it’s probably for the best.

He comes back ready to hold the light again, but Abe’s already screwing a fresh fuse in. The circuit comes back to life, but after another grating heave, the machine downstairs dies.

Abe stomps over to the top of the stairs and glowers at the door to the other suite. “What the hell are they even doing down there? And,” he pitches his voice loud enough for people on the next block to hear, “would it _kill_ you guys to change the damn fuse your _selves_ once in a while?”

Sakaeguchi swats Abe’s arm, shushing him.

Abe bites out a tight, “What?” but quiets. And in that lull, Sakaeguchi can hear…nothing.

No more machinery, no more slithering, no unintelligible muttering.

Sakaeguchi licks his lips. Then jumps violently when the floorboards creak.

But it’s just Mihashi edging out into the kitchen to peer at them curiously. Sakaeguchi meets his reddened eyes.

 _I don’t know what I’m supposed to do._ “Abe, have you seen the neighbours recently?” Anxiety fizzes down the back of his skull.

He can hear the perplexed frown in Abe’s tone. “No, not recently. Heard them, but—”

“But _have_ you?”

“Eh?”

Mihashi tiptoes closer, eyes clearly trained on Abe’s location, even if he can’t see him yet.

“Heard them. Heard, like, people’s voices. Human noises.” Sakaeguchi finally turns to look at Abe, who frowns impatiently.

“As opposed to what, barnyard animal noises?” He smirks, and for all that it irks Sakaeguchi, the flash of teeth in the shadows pulls at something pleasant in his gut. But of course, Abe’s eyes slip off him to where Mihashi’s peeping around the corner of the kitchen door. Mihashi squeaks and skitters back; Abe makes a faintly disgusted noise, looking back down the stairs.

That are unreached by the piercing fluorescent light from the kitchen, the shadows almost seeming to hang in the air, crowd the corners around the door at the bottom. Sakaeguchi shivers, hurriedly flicking on the light.

And then slaps his palm around Abe’s bicep when he steps down onto the staircase. “The hell’re you doing?” he hisses out.

“What?” Abe stares down at his hand in a way that leaves Sakaeguchi hyper-conscious of the feel of his muscles. “I’m just going to talk to them. I’m sure _they_ can handle that. And this way,” Abe gives him a deadpan glare, “we can reassure you they haven’t been replaced by donkeys.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Sakaeguchi snatches his hand back, rubbing his thumb over his fingertips. As much as he loathes it, he follows Abe down; behind him, the stairs creak under a tentative (but apparently still curious) foot.

Abe knocks, calling, “Oi! We wanna have a word!” then tilts his head to listen.

There’s a faint rustle of sound from somewhere in the house. Or maybe outside. Either way, it’s leaving Sakaeguchi’s insides feeling like they’re slowly and delicately knotting themselves around his spine. He jumps when Mihashi’s fingers curl on the back of his sweater.

Abe hisses in a breath. “Look, it’s just your neighbours! About the—” He raps at the door again, falling silent when, with a long and almost comical protest of hinges, it swings in.

Sakaeguchi stiffens. _Are we just literally walking into a horror film??_

He squints past Abe at the rectangle of light thrown onto the floor and the end of a blunt, low hallway. It looks…utterly pedestrian, but Sakaeguchi still can’t shake the feeling that something is off. Especially when Abe glances back at them, an uncertain crease between his brows.

And then turns back and steps through the door.

Sakaeguchi makes a choked noise and grabs after him, but misses. He’s left staring incredulously at Abe’s back as he steps over to a partly-open door to peer in. _We don’t even_ know _these people, there is no earthly reason not to shut this door and march upstairs and pull my damn blanket over my head, and_ several _reasons,_ rational _reasons why I should._ He dithers for a few more seconds before reaching back, grabbing Mihashi’s hand, and dragging him gasping and shivering after Abe.

Who has found the bathroom. Sakaeguchi eyes the door into the bath itself suspiciously. It’s faintly illuminated from the other side, and he’s just waiting for some deformed shape to plaster itself against the frosted glass.

He yanks on Abe’s sleeve. “We can’t just barge in here!”

“They don’t appear to be home. This place looks weird, I wanna check it out.”

Sakaeguchi gives him an unhappy look and then sticks his head back out into the hall. “Hey, we’re coming—I mean, we came in! Are you alright? We haven’t seen much of you lately…” He’s starting to feel a little stupid, moreso when Abe just shoulders past him and continues down the hall.

“One of the futons in the other room wasn’t folded up, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for a while…” Abe pauses to push in another door, this one leading to another bedroom. This one, however, is full of open shipping cartons; Abe slips through the door to poke his nose into one.

Sakaeguchi hovers in the hall, Mihashi behind him again and keeping a tight grip on his sleeve. Diffuse LED glow scatters up the hall to them, the hum and chitter of electronics loud against the quiet night. Sakaeguchi can see part of a worktable with an indiscriminate mass of boxy objects and wiring or tubes.

“Hello…?” he calls again, making Mihashi jump; he crowds the periphery of Sakaeguchi’s space, almost leaning on him but not quite.

“Useless.” Abe joins them, immediately striking off down the hall. Sakaeguchi hurries after him, dragging Mihashi along.

There are closets here under the stairs, which his mind happily populates with all manner of ghouls and murderers who would of course delight in squashing themselves in such an inhospitable space just for the chance to jump out and grab his ankles. Perhaps through the last one, cracked open a little—

“Watch it, there’s glass.”

Sakaeguchi _tsks_ , wrinkling his nose as a waft of mold hits his nose. “Whoever they are, they’re total slobs.” He bites his tongue, waiting for a snarky reply, but to his relief none comes.

Instead, he walks full-on into Abe’s (distractingly soft) back. Mihashi fetches up behind him with a squeak, scrabbling at his back in a hideously ticklish way. Sakaeguchi makes a choked noise, dodging out from between them and towards the opening into the main room. Only to be held up by Abe’s tensely outflung hand.

He doesn’t see anything alarming at first. Odd, for sure, a bewildering array strewn around the living room: several PCs, two microscopes, clunky-looking wheeled machines he can’t guess the function of, something that looks almost like an old-timey microphone except that part of it has been sheared off completely. Notebooks and office chairs and more lab equipment, looking out of place in the dingy room. And piled in the corner but dominating the room like some obscure art installation, are many small box TVs; Sakaeguchi didn’t even know you could get those anymore. They glint in the light like an immense insect’s eye, round and beady. Near them are a couple of ludicrously large flatscreens, one rather spectacularly cracked and the other seemingly in tact but not powered. More obscure cables snake out from behind it, leading to a cobbled-together mess of a machine. There appears to be a…mason jar involved. Not a clean one.

But none of that explains Abe’s tension. Though there is a hole apparently _melted_ through the door that’s making _him_ very unhappy. “What?” Sakaeguchi prompts testily.

“The _floor_ ,” Abe says, apparently thinking that’s adequate.

Then again, the second Sakaeguchi looks down…

The light’s poor, but now that he’s paying attention, he notices the char marks on a table leg. Places where the cheap linoleum is smudged sooty and melted or looks as though it shattered like an icy puddle. Melted plastic on an overturned chair.

And an uneven spatter of long-dried brown droplets turning into a smear as they get closer to the bank of TVs.

Sakaeguchi shudders in a breath. “We need to call the cops.”

“Yep.”

Mihashi helpfully contributes a whimper.

* * *

Sakaeguchi’s mama had a shoebox in the closet of keepsakes from highschool. He and Wakako and Yuki used to take it down and look through it, tell each other the stories they knew and invent ones they didn’t, trace their fingers over mementos of a girl who was gone long before the woman they knew passed.

Sakaeguchi doesn’t have a box, but he does have photos.

Some he took himself, others shared. A few taken properly on a camera by Shinooka, most snapped on phones over that first summer, grainy on the computer but the feeling still shines through the pixels. Downtime, when they had the leisure and free hands to take them: messing around with the hose, stuffing their faces with watermelon, or just laughing together over some now long-forgotten joke. Mizutani and Tajima playing rock-paper-scissors for something a background Hanai looks pissed about. An impressive bruise, Sakaeguchi forgets whose. People sleeping in incongruous places. Then people pretending to sleep in successively more ridiculous poses until Shiga-sensei called a moratorium before someone hurt themself. Branches of a tree and green-dapple light blinding the camera lens. Shinooka beaming with a sheaf of papers in one hand. The Shinooka hiding behind the papers, ears pink, and Izumi edged into frame behind her and giving the photographer a disapproving glare.

The backs of people’s heads on the bus, in cars, on trains, people giggly and tense with excitement or worn out and drooping on each others’ shoulders. Abe asleep on the bus south with his mouth hanging open, then with one sleepy eye cracked and raising his eyebrow at the camera. The shortstop group from the Kansai training camp, Suyama near one end, beaming and towering over the other first years. Players flopped contentedly in the grass with tummies stuffed full of barbecue. Abe’s spectacular and varied apoplectic facial expression while notating their defense.

Hamada looking far too goofy and embarrassed to possibly be a Mr. Nishiura nominee, Oki smiling shyly while he holds the weight of the garland Nishihiro’s pinning up. A selfie, Mizutani and a yukata-clad Shinooka flanking Sakaeguchi, and nothing in his face to show the disappointment he felt a moment before when Mizutani laughingly explained about Abe ditching. A delightedly bewildered Mihashi with a sweaty and (somewhat menacingly) grinning Haruna draped over his shoulder and pinching his cheek. Tajima running back from home trailing a blanket behind him like a flower-dotted sail to leap on Mihashi in the evening chill. One mischievous and one nervous smile showing under the blanket as Hanai arrives to chew Tajima out.

Photos of victory, photos of defeat, photos of Ai-chan, photos of Suyama’s bento, photos of indiscriminate blurs that he never gets around to deleting. Photos of Hanai talking to prospective teammates, looming over the first years with a stern face. A photo of him from perhaps a few minutes before, crouching red-faced behind the storage shed with a handwritten piece of paper clutched in his fist. Oki talking earnestly to a freaked-out first year, teammates in game uniforms behind them. Photos of wins, photos of losses. But more and more wins as Nishiura builds up its strong core and the influx of new blood pushes them ever harder. Photos of the team’s steadily-beating heart, its starting battery. Photos of Mihashi and Abe talking, laughing, working, arguing, laughing again, of Abe’s arm slung across Mihashi’s shoulders and the sunlight always warm caught in their hair and on flushed cheeks and in eyes caught on each other.

Photos of firsts and lasts and middles and elbows and one last crushing loss. Then the moment when Nishiura’s third years lined up together for the last time and listened to their kouhai say goodbye.

Sakaeguchi’s record doesn’t end there, because they’re all so used to studying together at this point, it seems odd not to prepare for entrance exams in a group. Even now, he still prefers working in libraries with the hushed sound of other bodies and thoughts thick around him. Photos of Nishihiro slumped across a table with an incredulous and fond smile echoed in Tajima’s cheeky grin. Hanai with his head pillowed on his arms and his glasses folded on the table in front of him. Photos of teary-eyed parents and grinning teens under picturesque cherry blossoms, photos of Sakaeguchi with his dad and his siblings grinning like there isn’t an empty space at their sides. Photos of the boys standing on the small shared field that will always, always be home. Nothing can compare to the heady feeling when their spikes bit into the field at Koshien for that brief flash, but this is the place where they stood together day after day, sweated and broke blisters and forged a shining path into the future together.

And then nothing.

* * *

The brusque officer Sakaeguchi talks to on the phone asks him a lot of questions about who _he_ is. What little she asks about the other tenants, he mostly finds himself answering, “I’m not sure,” his cheeks burning with frustrated embarrassment as he paces in front of the couch. In a last-ditch effort, he makes sure Abe’s out of earshot and whispers to the officer about the weird noises he’s heard.

There’s a long, huffy silence, and then she replies, “Perhaps you would be better off contacting pest control. Please don’t waste our time,” and hangs up on him.

Sakaeguchi stares down at his phone, deeply offended. When he looks up, Abe is leaning in the doorway into the kitchen, watching him levelly with his arms crossed over his chest. Sakaeguchi’s eyes widen, and he musters a tense smile, wondering just what Abe had heard.

“I’m guessing from your face that they weren’t helpful.”

He tries not to look too relieved. “No. She thought maybe it was animals.”

“Hm.” Abe glances back towards the laundry door before fixing him with a direct stare. “Do _you_ think it was animals?”

Sakaeguchi leans against the arm of a chair. “Not a chance.” _Define ‘animals’._

Abe takes a few steps into the room, shoving one hand into his jeans pocket and rubbing his lips with the other in a way that’s obnoxiously entrancing. “Yuuto… Did you notice anything off about that room?”

He pulls a face. “No. Absolutely nothing in that room was off.”

Abe huffs out an irritated noise. “The blood. I’m asking you seriously. Maybe _I_ should’ve been the—”

Cold fingers scrape down Sakaeguchi’s spine, curl in his belly. _Don’t drag those words up here into our home._ “And I’m _answering_ you seriously. There’s blood on the floor in our basement; that’s fucked up. I don’t know what more you want.”

Abe blinks back at him, taken aback, and it’s only then that Sakaeguchi hears the harshness of his own tone. He presses his lips together, searching for an apology.

Abe looks away, lifting the corner of a magazine on a shelf. “Nevermind, just something I thought I saw…” The fingers in Sakaeguchi’s gut dig in. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sakaeguchi exhales a slow breath. “Look, none of us should be worrying about _any_ of it. I’ll go tomorrow, see if I can convince someone to come look…” He glances over at Abe, then pushes himself up, closing the distance between them. He hesitates a moment longer before taking one of Abe’s hands between his own. It feels deliciously warm; ever since they’d set foot in the downstairs suite, he’s felt cold, as though all his blood were spilled on the floor too. “Don’t go fretting about this, hey? There are people whose job it is to—”

Abe snatches his hand away, whirling towards the hall. “I’m _not_ ‘fretting’ about it. _I’m_ going to bed. Ask Mihashi if he still has contact info for Hamada.” And without a backward glance, he shuts his bedroom door.

Sakaeguchi wishes he could summon up a vitriolic glare to burn through the door, but he’s just left staring sadly at his hands, palms still warm from Abe’s.

* * *

His trail of photographs doesn’t end there, but it becomes sparse enough that it might as well.

Chance meetings here and there, coffee with Suyama when they both happened to be back in town. Quick selfies with smiles and v-signs and sincere promises to call sometime that are usually forgotten by the time people get home. Just an attempt to cement the reality of this brush with a past life, tie a strand to the Now. But these are few, scattered petals at spring’s end giving way to the bright leaves and fruits of summer.

Turn a photo on its side, and its edge traces a silver nitrate line, a line that connects people and places and moments, binds them together and to reality. Sakaeguchi treasures them, traces that outflung line with his fingers or with the tap of a key, captures from the darkness the shapes of peace, of parties, of fights, of respite, of strangers and best friends forgotten and blurry swans and dirty coffee mugs.

No photos of that meeting, though Sakaeguchi has every moment of it etched in his mind. Trying desperately to focus on putting together another lit review and fervently denying to himself that he had chosen this particular corner of the crowded campus café, this particular bench, because of the appealingly broad back of the other man sitting there. Finally giving in and turning, hoping to see something to strike up a conversation about and make friends and only a little bit curious whether the stranger’s face was as handsome as his form and nearly dropping his mug when he realised it was Abe.

Without looking, Abe’s hand had darted out to steady it, followed by the first words he’d heard in that familiar baritone in years, “Do _not_ dump coffee on my computer.”

Sakaeguchi had pulled a face, blandly replying, “Sorry.” But instantly, all irritation had flushed out of him with the startled—and _happy_ , he dearly hopes he’s not misremembering how _happy_ Abe looked—expression flashing across Abe’s face.

He hadn’t _meant_ to be nosy and look at Abe’s screen, but when he brought back two fresh cups of coffee, he couldn’t help seeing the several tabs worth of apartment listings. Found himself bemoaning his choice to rent a room in a house full of undergrads. Abe had agreed, said while campus housing was adequate, it was a hell of a lot noisier than he’d been hoping. And then had given Sakaeguchi a long, considering look that rendered him flushed and frantically shoving down feelings he thought he’d left behind long ago, left buried on an abandoned harddrive in amongst all those eternal images of summer.

But all so easily rekindled and doused in the same breath when Abe bluntly asked if he’d consider living with him and Mihashi.

Of course, he’d ascertained quickly that his assumption of couplehood was wrong, that in fact their meeting had been just as chance, two lines crossing on a train platform on the way back from home.

That, Sakaeguchi’s seen the pictures of. Misae trying to take a nice selfie with her eldest, who, when he’s in frame, looks deeply put-upon. Up until he takes the phone, getting a better angle and suddenly fascinated by something on the screen. A scrawny young man standing a ways behind them, his hair a familiar pale starburst, carrying a duffle bag that looks about as big as he is and somehow managing to look unsteady even while standing still.

Photos of apartments, of suites. A photo of Mihashi, exhausted, sprawled ridiculously in a patch of sunlight on another empty carpet. A selfie together with Sakaeguchi flopped down beside him, giggling and squinting in the light, and then a picture of Abe and the stiff young realtor in his stiff, dull suit peering down at them disapprovingly. Kitchens and bathrooms and random corners; Sakaeguchi dutifully takes them because it seems like the right thing to do, but none of them actually look at them after. And anyway, when they find the place, they all know it.

It’s distinctly Western and old enough to be noticeable but not impressive. Weird and gawky up against the polite boxy apartment building next door, covered in peeling paint that was once a peculiar candy-like mix of muted yellow, green, white, and blue. The bedrooms are bright, the kitchen is sensibly laid-out, the rent is cheap, and the location convenient for school and Mihashi’s job. There’s shared laundry that looks out over a little patch of yard running down into a tree-lined channel, swollen already with autumn rains.

Photographs, images bind people together, but chance, too, crossed lines on a campus or a suddenly familiar square palm. And together, they build other connections. Meals and tasks shared, conversations had, fights had, boredom weathered. Smoke alarms beaten into submission and replaced. Fights had, plans made, plans scrapped to eat take-out in pyjamas and sit on the floor working with a film and friend’s laughter providing warm background noise. Neighbourhoods explored, fights avoided. Fights had later. Delicious dinners stiffly eaten. Fights had.

* * *

Sakaeguchi wearily climbs the stairs to his attic room. He’s tired and distracted enough that he doesn’t register the figure sitting rigidly against the head of his bed.

He freezes for a second, just meeting Mihashi’s equally startled gaze. _Why’re_ you _startled when you’re the one in_ my _bed?_

Mihashi stammers out an apology, throwing back the blankets and starting to scramble out.

 _As if I’d kick you out after all that. Is that what you think of me?_ He musters a smile, patting his hands at the air. “Hey, hey, relax, you can stay,” and then tries not to laugh when Mihashi practically melts with relief.

Sakaeguchi shakes his head, feeling more relaxed than he has since getting home. He steps over to his dresser, pulling off his shirt and tossing it in the hamper, followed by his jeans. And instantly feels anything but relaxed, especially since he can _feel_ Mihashi’s eyes on him. _What the heck. We’ve been naked around each other more times than I can count. And I’m_ not _even naked._ He scowls at the wall. _I am standing here in my boxers like a weirdo._ He hurries to dig out a sleep shirt, hoping he’ll have regained his equilibrium by the time it’s on.

_It’s different, it’s different when you come to me._

When he turns, Mihashi’s scrunched down in the bed with the covers pulled up. Sakaeguchi flicks off the bedside lamp and slips into bed. He’s barely settled before fingers, cold even through his shirt, clutch at him, draw him closer. Mihashi mashes his nose against Sakaeguchi’s collarbone, leaving him with a face-full of hair. There isn’t enough space, Mihashi’s flannel-clad knees keeping jamming against his own and he’s all angles and his feet are probably ice too, and yet.

And yet right now, he needs this maybe as much as Mihashi does. He wraps an arm around his back and wedges the other under the pillows in a pose that’s becoming second nature now.

He considers asking Mihashi about the phone number now, but he can feel the calm stealing over his limbs and doesn’t want to disturb it. More, he squeezes him tighter as if that would somehow confer some of Mihashi’s stillness on him. His insides still clench whenever he thinks of the scene in the basement. But that’s a problem for the morning, so for now, he tries to focus on Mihashi’s tight grip on his shirt, on his other arm sliding to drape sleep-heavy over his side, on his slowing breath puffing against his chest, on the steady warming of their bodies under the covers.

And try not to think about the fact that every door between his room and the basement had been open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they say "write what you know" and what I know are gingerbread houses with stupidly-renovated basement suites and faulty wiring. OuOb hey abe chill at least u don't have the circuit breaker for the ENTIRE HOUSE in your fricken bedroom;;;;;;


	2. Polynya

“You guys don’t need to be here for this.” Hamada reaches the bottom step, clicking a heavy-duty flashlight on-off-on. “Actually, you two seriously oughta wait upstairs…”

More uneasy than he’d like to let on, Abe crosses his arms over his chest. “But according to the officer Yuuto talked to, it’s ‘probably animals’, so why shouldn’t we?”

Despite the tie and the crisp navy shirt under a stab vest, Hamada still looks like an overgrown kid. Especially now he’s taken off his cap and is left just with a low bun that definitely looks the worse for wear this late in the day.

Hamada gives him a narrow-eyed look over his shoulder as if he can read his thoughts before muttering, “Well, _technically_ , you’re still _trespassing…_ ” He still turns back to the door, pausing with his hand poised to knock. “You called the landlord?”

“Ah, yeah…couldn’t get through, though.” Sakaeguchi’s nervousness is an almost palpable presence at Abe’s back. At least Mihashi’s still at work so they don’t have to deal with his fussing as well. Sakaeguchi taps his shoulder. “Wait, d’you think something happened to them, too?”

Abe grits out a breath. “Our rent cheques still get cashed, right?” Below him, Hamada calls out a rote-sounding warning, waiting with his head turned to listen before pushing open the door. “Nothing’s happened to the damn landlord.”

There’s a brief but affronted silence from behind him, then, “Wow, I’m _so_ sorry for being concerned about oth—”

“Sh.”

Or perhaps it is possible to believe in Hamada-the-police-officer, with his hand snapping up sharply, his back straight with alertness at whatever small sound he’d caught. Abe strains his ears but all he can hear is the fuzzy whir of computer fans and the rumble of distant traffic.

After a moment, Hamada starts down the hall again, glancing into the side rooms with his flashlight held high but not lingering. Abe looks too, but they’re just as unilluminating as they were last night. Rain pours down the small high windows, leaving them in a late-afternoon gloom; he wonders if Mihashi remembered an umbrella.

Hamada carefully picks his way into the middle of the livingroom. Abe follows, staying closer to the wall, but Sakaeguchi hovers in the doorway like now he’s afraid to cross that boundary.

“It’s creepy as hell, I’ll give you that.”

Sakaeguchi flinches at Hamada’s voice, then finds Abe’s eyes with a twisty little smile he can’t interpret.

Hamada’s still mumbling, half to himself. “…like foul play, no doubt, although… _what_ …” He crouches down, shining the light under one of the tables. “Firecrackers? But you’d’ve heard…” He straightens with a sigh, then continues, “You two _really_ shouldn’t be down here.” Conversationally, like he doesn’t expect a response, let alone obedience.

Abe edges out a little further, examining the blood trail with the benefit of better light.

“ _Taka_ ya.”

Hamada’s swinging the light around the kitchen, illuminating some takeout boxes and barely recognisable spoiled fruit. “You say you haven’t heard anything from them in a while?”

Sakaeguchi breaks off from urgently hissing Abe’s name to answer. “Yeah. And…no cars, no recycling, no garbage… I can’t remember the last time they did laundry.” He drops back to sotto voce. “Takaya, what the _hell_ are you doing?”

Abe blithely ignores the question. “They never did any laundry.” The blood smears as it nears the pile of TVs; Abe steps over something unpleasantly like a handprint. There’s something crusty scraped on the top of two TVs, and around the screen of the one above them… Abe pulls out his phone, trying to see better.

“Yeah! And isn’t that weird?”

“Mm. Mostly gross.” There are fingertip-like smudges at the edges of the box. As if someone were trying to hang on. He reaches out, fingers stopping just short of the blank screen. Cold settles in Abe’s stomach, and he starts to angle the light down into the crack between the two TVs below. “Hamada…?”

“That’s great, guys. I’m no detective, but laundry habits are _definitely_ relevant.”

Abe shoots a glare over his shoulder, opening his mouth to call again.

And then freezes, every hair on his body standing on end.

The ugly watery gurgle hangs in the air.

Every rational part of his brain insists it was the sound of a drain somewhere in the house, except that everyone home is here with him. And looking just as alarmed as he feels. And both staring back down the hall.

Abe darts across the room, grabbing Sakaeguchi’s arm and yanking him away from the opening. Just in time for Hamada to sidestep past them, eyes and flashlight trained on the hall closet.

 _Thump_.

Without looking, Hamada unsnaps a pocket at his hip, drawing out a small black tube. “Stay back,” he warns, none of his normal geniality in his voice. Abe bristles at it, but still backs them further away. This time, when Sakaeguchi grabs his hand like they’re kids on a field trip, Abe just squeezes it back irritably. His heart pounds in his chest as he strains to see.

Hamada extends the baton with a businesslike _cla-chack_. He uses the tip to nudge the closet door open further. It catches on something inside. With a muttered curse, Hamada pushes harder.

With a thunk and a crash of more glass falling, the door slides open.

Most of the small aquarium tanks set on the shelves are smashed, two of them now on the floor. They almost obscure another baffling piece of machinery tucked in on the bottom, if it weren’t for the pale tubing snaking up from it to the remains of each tank.

Up to the top one, the only one still in tact, hanging precariously at the edge of the shelf.

When Shun was about ten, Dad finally got fed up with being tearfully called into his room at all hours to deal with errant spiders. There was yelling, probably words like ‘grow the hell up’ were used, and more bawling on Shun’s part. But in the end, he stopped asking.

But then some weeks later, there he was tearfully knocking on his big brother’s door and dragging him to his bedroom to stretch across his bed and peer down into the darkness behind it. Seemed Shun had gotten as far as putting a cup over an invader but hadn’t been able to muster the courage to slip paper under and take it outside. And then had just…forgotten. The cup was full of a delicate and pointless lattice of silk along with the shriveled and curled-up corpse of its occupant.

Shun had cried on his shoulder for ages, even after he disposed of it. The visual had stuck with him, of an organism so trapped, so without hope or even the intelligence to fully comprehend its own hopelessness, that it had no recourse but to repeat the same strategy over and over until its life force was exhausted.

That is not what Abe sees in the closet.

Malevolent red eyes shine with a light of their own. No pupil, no iris, nothing remotely familiar in it, and yet something in his gut tells him the creature is _aware_ , sapient in a way that most animals are not. Even with the flashlight, darkness churns behind the glass and he can’t tell what the shape of the creature is, though he gets glimpses of something bone-pale and solid.

Sakaeguchi’s palm is ice against his own chill skin. Abe grips his hand harder.

The next few seconds are a blur.

With another gurgle, the creature throws itself against the glass, a flurry of movement sending the tank jerkily scraping against the shelf. Hamada chokes a yell, staggering back as it tips off the edge. No dramatic slow-motion, it instantly becomes a smashed starburst of shards on the ground around a disgusting black splat.

Abe thinks for a breath that the fall killed it.

Hamada trains the flashlight on the dark shape. The creature stretches towards the light, pulling off the floor like a piece of gum. Flames erupt out of nowhere, licking at Hamada’s stomach. He leaps back, smacking at his vest. Somewhere along the line, he’s lost his baton. Abe lunges towards him but is stopped by Sakaeguchi’s cold weight. Not like he has anything but his fists and feet.

Hamada regains his balance and springs at the floating creature with a yell, flashlight tracing a wild arc that narrowly misses the wall. It connects, and the thing _shrieks_ , smacking into the closet door. Hamada laughs out a triumphant noise that turns into a yelp as a gout of flame tears its way up his arm. The flashlight swings again, the creature garbling out frantic noises.

Abe tells himself firmly that Hamada’s got it covered, that he’s as likely to get a flashlight in the teeth as actually help. It doesn’t make him feel better.

Each impact makes a sickening squelching thunk, sends shadows dancing in and out of existence on the walls. The creature doesn’t attack again, just adheres sloppily to the flashlight, Hamada’s ragged gasps the only sound now. Except the thud of impact.

Abe reaches a hand towards him. “Hey. It’s dead.”

“How would _you_ know?” When he glances back at Sakaeguchi, his face is pinched and pale.

“Hey, it’s gone! It’s goddamn _melting!_ ” Hamada’s chest and shoulders heave with his breath, something helpless in his imploring gaze.

“I think that means it’s definitely dead.”

“What the _hell_ did I just kill?!”

Abe finally hauls Sakaeguchi forward, squinting down at the oily smear on the hall carpet. “Doubt we’re gonna find out.” He meets Hamada’s eyes again. “We should look at your arm.”

“Eh?” Hamada plucks at the remains of his right sleeve, grimacing. “Ah, yeah…”

They pile upstairs, in silent agreement not to use the sink down here. Abe clears dishes out of the kitchen sink, then hovers over Hamada, supervising the water slowly rising around his forearm. The hairs are lightly singed, the skin blotchy red in an uneven swath from just above his wrist to the inside of the elbow, but there doesn’t seem to be significant damage. Abe scowls down at it, cold frustration settling in his stomach.

Hamada finishes rolling up his sleeve and twists his arm to look at it, only to have Abe gently-but-firmly shove it down into the cold water.

“Oi!” Hamada squints at Abe, wriggling in his hold; the skin pulls strangely under his fingers, like scar tissue. “Stings like a bitch, so I’m _fine._ The damn thing probably missed.” He brushes his hand down the singed front of his stab vest, grimacing.

Abe ignores his tone, leaning on the counter to peer at his face. “You think the flames came from that thing?”

“Well, that’s what it looked like to _me_.”

He’s corroborating his own observation, but Abe’s mind still balks at the idea. “Things don’t just breathe flame, it’s not—”

“So you have a better explanation?” Sakaeguchi returns from filling the kettle in the bathroom (plugging it into the stove this time, Abe notes with some small satisfaction). He glances over at them sharply as he opens the cupboard; somehow, Abe can’t meet his eye. “Will you have tea, Yoshirou-kun?” Sakaeguchi asks with aggressive civility.

“Ah… Sure, if you’re making some…” Hamada rubs absently at his elbow.

“Right.” Sakaeguchi turns back to the cupboard, giving the teapot on the top shelf a stern look. Abe steps towards him, but before he can help, Sakaeguchi’s up on his toes and teasing it off the shelf with his fingertips to fall a few centimeters into his hands, the lid clinking alarmingly. He sets it down, eyebrows arched as he spoons tea leaves into its metal filter.

Frowning, Abe reaches around him for mugs and then takes them over to the table. The front door bangs open, shutting more quietly. Abe starts back for another mug, but pauses to poke his head around the doorway. Mihashi hops around on one foot, trying to pull off a boot and nearly tripping over a grocery bag. Abe turns back to the other two with a fondly exasperated sigh.

Just in time to see Hamada crane around to look at him and say, none too quietly, “Look, I’m certain the flames came _from_ that thing. Maybe you couldn’t see properly because _you_ were further away, but it sure seemed like a reaction to getting,” he blanches, “hit, so—”

“Sh!” Abe inclines his head towards the livingroom and Mihashi’s approaching footsteps.

“Don’t shush Yoshirou,” Sakaeguchi chastises the cupboards, “And anyway, Ren knows about those things already. He’s not a baby, he should know about this too.”

Put out, Abe steps in close and swings the cupboard open with barely enough room for Sakaeguchi to lean out of the way, his shoulder brushing Abe’s arm. “The hell do you mean, he knows?” He snatches Mihashi’s preferred mug off the shelf, scowling at the doorway.

“Well, unless there’s something _else_ been crawling around out back these past weeks…”

“What the fuck—”

“Don’t yell in my ear.”

Mihashi drops his bag. “H-Hama-chan! Came!”

Hamada twists, still bent over the sink, and waves. “Hey, long time no see! How’s it going?”

Mihashi pads across the kitchen, peering at him curiously. “U-uniform… Hama-chan looks cool! But…why…the…arm…”

“Ah, I got burned, so…” Mihashi squeaks in alarm. “Hey, but not bad or anything!” Hamada grins, lifting his arm up to show like a proud kid. “Takaya and Yuuto took care of me!”

Abe makes the mistake of looking back at Mihashi, into the full force of his unnecessarily grateful smile. As if they’d done anything.

Mihashi’s eyes light on the mug in his hands, a dreamy purple with little stars stamped into the sides and splashed with a warm yellow glaze. His smile falters, his mouth opening and closing, and Abe can almost _see_ his mind going off down some weird rabbit hole.

Abe gives him a second then rolls his eyes and shoves it into his hands. “Go put this on the table with the rest.”

Mihashi prances over to the table with his prize, arranging it carefully with the other mugs. He peeks over his shoulder at them a couple times before flitting over to the cupboard on the other side of the sink for a plate, pulling the cookie jar closer. Which Abe hadn’t realised had been replenished; sweet coconut wafts out into the kitchen.

Feeling distinctly more amicable, Abe steps over to scoop up Mihashi’s discarded groceries, poking through them. _What’s with all this fancy stuff…?_

But Sakaeguchi’s comment is still buzzing at the back of his mind, so he sticks the meat and vegetables in the fridge, drops the bag on the counter, and leans back against it, peering over at Sakaeguchi suspiciously. His expression is carefully neutral, light lashes low over his eyes and a slight pink tinge to his cheeks. As Abe watches, it deepens, spreads to his ears and down to disappear into the collar of his shirt, merge with the shadows of his throat.

Abe pushes off the corner and paces across to the table, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. He lets his eyes slide from the back of Sakaeguchi’s head to Mihashi’s nervous smile across from him. Mihashi’s hair is still slightly squashed from being stuffed under a hairnet, a lone bobby pin stuck in apparently at random, but at least it’s dry. Abe’s considered many times pointing out that if he’d cut it shorter, he wouldn’t have such a problem with it at work, but then he’s used to seeing Mihashi with his fluffy halo, so better to leave him be. Besides, he’d probably take it the wrong way.

“You said Ren already knows about them.”

Mihashi stiffens, eyes popping wide. “I don’t! I don’t know. I haven’t…”

Abe gives him an exasperated look. “Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

“N-no…” Mihashi drops his eyes, face pinching sulkily as he stares at the cookies. He grabs one and takes a savage bite out of it, then lifts his eyes to Abe’s. “Basement?”

“Yeah.” Mihashi flashes an uncertain smile. As a conciliatory gesture, Abe magnanimously takes one of the cookies. It’s delicious.

Sakaeguchi still hovers over the teapot, though it doesn’t require his attention now. “We’ve been hearing noises at night. Perhaps you're a heavier sleeper, so you don’t hear them.”

“You’ll have to be more specific than ‘noises’.”

“I don’t know, creepy ones!” Sakaeguchi informs the cupboards. “I was _trying_ not to think about it, sorry.”

“Why the hell would you just ’not think about’ something like that?!”

“Guys. Come _on_.” Hamada lifts his arm from the water, shaking it dry, and comes to sit at the end of the table. He reaches into a pocket, producing a notepad with a pencil stuck through the coils; it seems strangely utilitarian and friendly after everything.

Abe side-eyes him. “You gonna report this?”

Hamada flips to a fresh page. “Dunno. But seems to _me_ you guys haven’t been pooling information. So.” He starts writing. Sakaeguchi sets the teapot down on the table with a gentle _clack_. Hamada looks up as he sits beside Mihashi. “You say you’ve been hearing weird stuff for a while?”

“Yeah…” Sakaeguchi looks down at his lap, jaw clenching.

Mihashi scooches his chair closer to Sakaeguchi, eyes fixed anxiously on his face. Abe frowns; he’s got the irrational sense that they’re holding hands under the table, and has a childish impulse to stand and look. Instead, he grabs the teapot and pours, pushing mugs at each person in turn.

Hamada prompts, “Yuuto?” again.

Sakaeguchi twitches, mouth quirking down. When he starts, his voice is clipped, distant. “Look, I don’t have much to tell you. I noticed them maybe…a couple months ago? No more than two. I thought I was hearing things until Ren said something about it when we…” He shakes his head and finally looks up at Hamada. “You heard that thing, it’s creepy as hell, and I was too much of a coward to look. But I hear them moving all over, almost every night. And they… They don’t just attack humans. The Komatsu’s cat? Didn’t just run off, I’m pretty damn sure.” His level tone wavers.

Abe swirls his tea in his mug. “There’s more of those things loose?”

Sakaeguchi blanches, nodding. “I…guess. I don’t know. I think so? I couldn’t guess at how many.” He looks at Abe searchingly. “Do we… Do we call animal control, or what? I-it looks like the neighbours had them trapped for a while—”

“That doesn’t appear to have ended well for them.” Abe slouches back, crossing his arms over his chest.

Sakaeguchi gives him an aggravated look, opening his mouth.

“Guys.” Hamada taps the eraser of his pencil against the table agitatedly. “Back on track. Yuuto, you got anything else you want to add?” Eyes on his tea, Sakaeguchi shakes his head. Hamada shifts his gaze to the other end of the table. “You two?”

Abe stares back at him, considering. He’d rather tell Hamada alone, or better yet, take him back down and show him. If he says something now, it’ll only freak the other two out even more. He looks across at Mihashi, who is staring into his lap, antsy, mouth opening and closing silently.

Abe narrows his eyes. “Ren? You got something?” Mihashi flinches, eyes widening, then shakes his head wildly. Abe sighs, turning back to Hamada. “Did you notice the blood? It looks like someone was dragged.” Unsurprisingly, Sakaeguchi and Mihashi tense.

Hamada looks at him sharply before scribbling on his notepad. “I didn’t get that good a look at it before shit went down. Did it lead to the door, or somewhere else in the suite…?”

“It’d be better for you to see for yourself, draw your own conclusions.”

Hamada raises an eyebrow at him but nods. “Anything else?”

Abe shakes his head. “Not without going down there and spending more time checking things out. I’d like to get a look in some of those notebooks—”

“Absolutely not.” Hamada rubs the bridge of his nose. “You need to keep your goddamn noses out of this.”

“Our noses are already pretty thoroughly in it,” Abe retorts.

“So move. Go stay at home for a while. Hell, go backpacking and ‘find’ yourselves somewhere _far_ away from any crime scenes.”

Mihashi whispers a question to Sakaeguchi; he turns, murmuring back a brief run-down of the earlier events.

Abe finds himself watching them instead of Hamada. “Running away isn’t going to solve the problem.” Sakaeguchi’s face is gentler, his eyes more relaxed as they scan Mihashi’s face. When Mihashi looks up at him finally, he even cracks a small smile; Mihashi returns it tremulously. Abe takes a drink, keeping his cup in front of his mouth. “What we need now is more data.”

“We’re not preparing for a game!” Hamada slams his mug down, making Mihashi jump. “You called me for a reason. You know damn well this isn’t a matter for civs to deal with.”

“So they trained you in monster suppression, did they?”

“Takaya, he’s right…” Sakaeguchi reaches across the table, palm out. “I don’t like it either, but we can’t…”

Abe grunts irritably. “Sure, whatever.” Sakaeguchi’s still giving him a mistrustful look; he decides to ignore it.

Hamada squints at him pissily for a breath, then releases a tired groan, dropping his face into his hands. “Y’know, _normally_ , old friends call you up to do _nice_ things. Like ‘Hey, Yoshirou, you wanna catch a movie? Go to the arcade?’ Not ‘Hey, Yoshirou, wanna come over and bash a monster to bits? There’s tea!’” he finishes, jabbing his hands at the teapot.

Silence falls, and in it hangs the word none of them have wanted to speak aloud. Monster. The word feels large and cumbersome, not to mention ridiculous. Then again, everything about the little ball of nasty they’d encountered fails to fit within the realm of Things Abe Expected to be Discussing Seriously Over A Kitchen Table.

Sakaeguchi inhales slowly. “Yoshirou-kun, you think we’re still in danger?”

Hamada sighs, pushing his empty mug closer to the teapot; Mihashi pours him another cup. “Yes? I don’t know. Look, I’m doing my best here, but… Abe’s right, it’s not like there’s standard protocol for ‘creepy monster infestation’. _I’ll_ be happier, the further you guys are from all this, but…” He grimaces, taking his mug back. “If this is the first time you’ve encountered one of these things face-to-face… Not like plain spookiness is gonna kill you, right?”

Sakaeguchi pulls a face. “Comforting.”

They avoid each others’ eyes for a long moment. Abruptly, Mihashi shoots to his feet, mouth flapping open.

“Ah! Hama…chan, I! I got some nice… If you want… Supper??”

Hamada looks torn but shakes his head. “I’ve got a long drive ahead of me, and I don’t wanna impose.” He pushes to his feet as well, looking weary.

“It’s not! Hama-chan’s…not!”

“Sorry.” Hamada steps around Sakaeguchi to drop his hand on top of Mihashi’s head. Mihashi smiles a little, eyes falling shut. “I gotta get home. But thanks, I’ll…” He glances over at Abe. “I’ll get in touch with your kouban, see what I can get moving. And,” he tips Mihashi’s head back, “let’s hang out. Properly. Somewhere that does _not_ have monsters. It’s been too long.”

Mihashi swells happily, beaming at Hamada. “Right!”

Abe can’t seem to look away from the expression, as if he’s storing up every sunlight second of it. He finally forces himself to take a long sip of tea. And catches Sakaeguchi’s eyes on him.

Hamada returns to the basement—alone, this time, after more glaring at Abe. He comes back up shortly, looking grim and perplexed. He refuses to discuss it with Abe, but his agitation is answer in itself.

Mihashi sees him off, then bounces back to the kitchen where Abe and Sakaeguchi are almost done tidying up. He opens the fridge, but Abe stops him with a hand on his wrist. Mihashi blinks down at it, then up at Abe’s face with that confused little smile.

“Don’t bother.”

Mihashi’s smile falters. Abe’s fingers twitch, pressing into the softness of his wrist. He opens his mouth, eyebrows pulling together.

Sakaeguchi clacks a plate behind them. “Takaya’s just thinking it’s been a long couple of days, and it’ll be better for everyone to relax. Right?”

“Yeah.” He’d thought that was obvious. He doesn’t particularly feel like cleaning up after some huge meal. “Let’s order something.”

Seeming reassured, Mihashi peers between them. With a sigh, Abe releases him, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. He fetches his laptop and sets it on the table, waiting for it to wake up while he stares back at the face reflected in the dark screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone is very grouchy at the beginning of this story and it's simultaneously satisfying and very uncomfortable to write... im 2canadian2write people being moderately snippy with each other;;;;;;
> 
> translating turn-based rpg mechanics into something more real-world is...fun... (actually it really is, further on 8D)


	3. Terrified Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for (non-graphic) wound care and also just. generally pretty messed up thoughts. 8D

Mihashi wakes up in odd places sometimes.

It happened now and then when he was little, waking up curled under the coffee table, half in a cupboard, or nestled between his parent’s feet. But somewhere in his teens, it had slackened off, left behind with his stuffed rabbit and loneliness.

But when they’d moved in here, it started again. Waking up at his desk or shivering by the front door with no recollection of how he got there. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring fuzzily at the rice cooker which he doesn’t remember turning on, and once, coming to with frigid dewy grass between his toes and the feeling that he’s being watched.

The worst is waking up downstairs, though.

In the laundry room is bad enough, but sometimes he wakes with the shadows at the bottom of the stairs swarming thick around him, the house so still and silent that the tiniest noises are claxon-loud and sinister.

Then it’s stumbling, falling up the stairs to get away from the crawly feeling up the back of his skull and the thump of his heart and the little voice that whispers _open it._

_Come in._

He always remembers scrambling up the stairs to Sakaeguchi’s room crystal-clear, every creaking step transforming the cold darkness into a soothing blanket. Sakaeguchi is so cozy and not too annoyed by the intrusion, even though Mihashi knows he’s being a pain, he’s imposing on his kindness yet again. But perhaps it is that very not-wantedness that comforts him the most, the fact that he comes here of his own volition and no other’s. Sakaeguchi is nice to him and cuddles him and makes the basement and work and fights and the large growly dog down the street and scary stories on the news and how very, very awful Mihashi himself is seem far away. Even if the shadows and the noises chase him upstairs, wheedle their way through the poorly-sealed window, he feels safer in Sakaeguchi’s bed.

Sometimes—often—he imagines another bulkier form on the other side, imagines how much safer he’d feel squashed and cramped between them with Abe’s arm draped across his chest above Sakaeguchi’s curled around his back. Imagines the push and pull of two sets of lungs lulling him to sleep. And if sometimes those thoughts morph into ones that leave him flushed and inching his hips further from any contact with Sakaeguchi, well, Mihashi’s no stranger to having to think very hard about cold showers.

All that is far from his mind when he wakes standing in the corner of the basement with his index finger buried up to the first knuckle in one of the television screens.

Mihashi snatches his hand back with a yelp. He stares at it in the dim light, already uncertain of what he’d just seen. The finger feels…completely normal. Maybe with the lingering sense of pressure, but otherwise unchanged, unharmed. But that almost makes it worse.

Mihashi’s breath is already speeding up, his head a swimmy confused mess. So he crouches down, fists curled tight against his stomach.

_Three things I can hear._

_The fridge humming. A fly buzzing. And…and…no, I don’t want…_

_Feeling, now._

_The calluses on my palms. My pyjamas stretching over my knees. The floor is cold. I’m cold. I’m shivering so bad and I—_

_Sight._

_Sight?_

_I have to open them, I have to look. There’s nothing there, there’s nothing, nothing, nothing, I’m safe, it’s okay—_

Except no, no, no, Hamada said it wasn’t, said they should stay away. And Sakaeguchi told him the monsters were real. Told him what he’d seen in the hall closet that now gapes behind him. If he turned his head, opened his eyes, he’s certain it would be _right there_ , he can _feel_ the empty acoustic of it, impossible space extending back, back, and the hallway and the door to the stairs swallowed up, and maybe not so empty, maybe the corners crowded with writhing bodies and glowing eyes and spilling towards him with their alien voices, rising up until he is subsumed, until he disappears under their thick nothingness.

_At least then I won’t ruin everything anymore._

It breaks the rattle of his thoughts, brings him back to himself enough to crack open one eye.

The room is conspicuously monster-free. When he somehow gathers the courage to glance over his shoulder, the closet is still politely in the hallway where it belongs. Nothing except for him and his reflection in the expanse of the TV screen. The pale smudge of his face, eyes huge and his hair sticking up in strict defiance of gravity, floating above the grey scale of his pyjamas with the barest hint of their pale blue. His lips press in a wibbly smile and Mihashi rolls forward onto his knees, fingers curled on the hem of his shirt.

 _I’m okay, it’s okay, I’m okay_.

He can even see the reddened splotch above his collar from a splash of hot oil at work the other day. His fingers brush over the tender skin. Mihashi leans forward, nose only a few centimeters from the screen, poking the burn and then up to prod at his puffy, dark-circled eyes. Too many interrupted nights. Overall, he looks pretty terrible. Mihashi pulls at his cheeks and sticks out his tongue, a giggle starting to bubble up.

Eyelids droop over familiar hazel eyes in a slow blink.

When they open, they catch gold in the light he now realises is not in the room.

Every hair on his body stands on end, a prickle of wrongness that sends him lurching to his feet. Fizzy light clouds his vision but he still runs, careening off the hallway walls and rounding the corner and he thinks for a moment that the doorknob is gone, _it’s gone, how is it gone there has to be a doorknob_ before he realises he’s scrabbling at the wrong side. He wrestles it open and flings himself at the steps, door swinging shut behind him.

_Did I…pull it shut?_

Mihashi cries out, scrambling up the steps practically on all fours. He just barely stops himself from slamming the laundry door, relief flooding his body at its solid clack. He sags back against it, sliding down to sit with his arms wrapped tight around the back of his thighs. The glow of the stove clock seems harsh, a green buzz of light and zeroes that he can’t look at for long. Mihashi shivers still, but not with cold.

Except an icy draft reaches under the door to caress his ankles, sending him shooting to his feet and hurtling forwards again. He bashes into a chair, but he barely notices, too intent on getting his hand on the doorknob to the attic. He scrapes against the elderly wallpaper on his way up, glad of the wall’s support as he pads upstairs with barely a creak for once.

Mihashi tiptoes across the landing, raising his hand to the door. There’s something stuck on the bottom of his foot; he rubs the sole on the opposite shin absently.

Sometimes, the door doesn’t quite latch. Sometimes, it just pushes in at the slightest touch.

Sakaeguchi’s covers are kicked down to the end of the bed so every last inch of his sweat-sheened body is laid bare to Mihashi’s eyes. His head is flung back on the pillows, one knee drawn up towards his chest, toes spread tense at the end of a foot that bobs lazily with the motion of his left arm. Mihashi traces down the line of his arm, elbow, hand, fingers, somehow delicate, beautiful in the way they hold the end of the dildo he’s working deeper into his ass, other hand stroking his dick in fast counterpoint to the short, gentle thrusts. The room is full of soft slick noises and the rough gasp of Sakaeguchi’s breath.

Mihashi’s lips part silently, his hand coming up to clutch at his shirt. He feels woozy again, this time with the rush of blood to his groin. Impulses war within him, to flee, to hover in the shadows and watch, to call out an apology. To let his feet carry him across the short distance, over to slide into bed beside Sakaeguchi, replace the hand on his dick with his own, replace the—

Mihashi drops to a crouch, covering his mouth to smother a needy whine. He can’t see as much of Sakaeguchi now, which is perhaps good, will perhaps help him clear his head. Enough that he can finally parse out Sakaeguchi’s breathless broken syllables.

“…a…k…ka…ya…”

Mihashi’s eyes fly open wide. Then his lashes droop low over them, face gone solemn as he presses his chin against his knees. _Of course. Did I expect something different?_

Slowly, he gets to his feet, unable to stop himself from flicking his eyes over Sakaeguchi’s taut body. He makes himself turn away, slink back downstairs and shut the door behind himself with the softest of snicks.

Mihashi glances down the hall to the open door of his own room. Then at the one across from him, shut fast. Heart in his mouth, he steps closer, raising his hand.

Then lets it fall, only the slightest scrape of sound as his knuckles graze the dark wood. Mihashi hangs his head. _All those nights…everything… I’m just getting in the way, here. They don’t want me. No one wants garbage like me._

The door swings out from under his hand, the gentle glow of a bedside lamp half-blinding him.

“Ren, wha…? You need something?” Abe rubs the heel of one hand against his eye, fingers pushing tensely up into his bangs. But nothing else about him is tense, not his sleepy blinks or the fuzzy shadow of his cheeks and the loose line of his lips. Down to the baggy hang of his shirt as he leans against the doorframe, the tilt of his hips, the toes of one foot scrunched under as if he were just too tired to lift is all the way.

Mihashi feels an odd tight swell in his chest. That, and an overwhelming desire to shove into Abe’s space, wrap his arms around him tight and maybe Abe would wrap _his_ arms around him too. Tell Abe about everything, because surely, Abe would know what to do, surely, Abe could fix him if Mihashi could just make himself ask. _Like you did before, but it didn’t stick, it couldn’t stick to me._ Press his face against Abe’s shoulder, into the sleep-slow heat of him, drift off with his head resting there, safe, safe, except no, no, if he thinks about doing that, it’s not rest that he’s thinking of doing on the bed, not memories of Sakaeguchi’s sleepy cuddling in his mind but his splayed body, and—

_Oh gosh oh nonononono don’t look down._

Abe’s eyes narrow. “Yuuto kick you out?”

“N-no!” Mihashi squeaks out, “Not! Not…he…uh, he was… Yuuto-kun was…” His hands flutter in front of his chest, grasping at nothing, and he feels very, very bare, even though he’s much more covered than Abe in his boxers— _just boxers, just a little bit of fabric covering his dick, and—_ Mihashi’s eyes flick down. Abe frowns deeper, starting to tip his head down too. “H-he was busy!” It occurs to him that that was not the subtlest way to phrase that. “Busy! Sleeping!” he adds, eyes huge and slipping off Abe’s face. Which is still tipped down. Under the angle of Abe’s arm, on the corner of his desk, there’s an odd black bar-shaped object with a usb cable that Mihashi might recognise if he weren’t panicking.

“Are you bleeding?”

Mihashi’s response is completely garbled, but not like Abe’s listening.

“What the hell did you do…?” Abe drops into a crouch, grabbing his calf with one hand and yanking up his pants leg.

With everything, Mihashi hadn’t registered the pain in his shin, or the bottom of his foot. He bites his lip, torn. _I don’t want to bug him in the middle of the night. But—_

_But it would be nice if Abe took care of me again._

Mihashi flushes heavily but gathers his courage. “Um… I think…I stepped on something? I-it’s…” He takes a breath and offers, “It hurts a little.”

Abe flashes a glare up at him before grabbing his other ankle; Mihashi obligingly lifts his foot. Abe _tsks_. “You’re a disaster, you know that?” Mihashi just nods dumbly. “C’mon. Let’s clean this up.” He stands, reaching out to clap Mihashi firmly on the back and propel him towards the bathroom. “Don’t put your weight on it.”

Mihashi likes their bathroom. Despite the odd architecture of the house, it’s a proper one, though the room with the sink is barely big enough for the two of them. Abe directs him to sit up on the counter and rummages around in a cupboard for first aid supplies.

Mihashi wriggles his toes, basking in the brilliant fluorescent glow that drives shadows into the smallest corners. Here, he always feels safe. Especially with Abe here, even if irritation is practically rising off him like steam while he sanitizes a pair of tweezers.

Abe crouches, grasping his ankle and adjust his foot so he can see better. “So. What were you doing?”

Mihashi’s been bracing himself for probing of a different kind and he squeaks in a way even he knows is suspicious. His mind races. “I…don’t know? It was…dark?”

Abe looks up at him, exasperated disbelief written on his face, then sighs, looking back down. “Fine. Don’t tell me.” Mihashi can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not.

He bites his lip, screwing up his courage. “I was just…walking…fast? And…dark, so—”

“Correction: don’t tell me if all you’re going to say is useless crap.”

Mihashi narrows his eyes, indignant even though technically he’d been gearing up for a lie. _But if I say anything…if I told Abe off… Abe would just leave, right?_ Mihashi rubs his arm uneasily, eyeing the sliver of dark hallway. He can feel Abe’s gaze on him again, and he wants, wants so bad to meet it, wants so bad for there to be something there other than patient indifference or worse. So he just keeps his eyes carefully averted and tries not to flinch when the tweezers scratch over glass.

“Breathe. Or you’re gonna kick me in the face.”

Despite himself, Mihashi looks at Abe’s face again. But now he’s intent on what he’s doing. Before he can get caught, Mihashi shifts his focus to the slow rise and fall of Abe’s chest, trying his best to match it.

 _In, out_. Abe’s grip on his ankle shift minutely, touch more steadying than the counter under Mihashi’s butt. _In, out_. Mihashi can feel his body heat, calling his attention to how icy his own feet are. _In, out._ But not where Abe touches him. _In, out._ There, warmth radiating from that sole point of contact, up his calf, his thigh, to reach into the cold pit of his stomach. _In, out_. Except it’s messy, it awakens more than just comfort in him, leaves him biting down hard on his lip and trying to ignore the dark lines of Abe’s lashes and brows, the stretch of his shoulders, the shadowed glimpse down the collar of his shirt that should not be so exciting, but is, is.

“There.” Abe pats his leg like a well-behaved dog, then starts rolling up Mihashi’s other pants leg to look at the light scratch there.

Mihashi forces himself to look at a crack on the wall, thinking very hard about the least sexiest thing he can think of. Toads. Toads seem good. He imagines toads instead of feeling Abe’s fingers pressing into his calf and the gentle swipe of an alcohol swab.

His fingers clench on the edge of the counter.

When Abe rises to his feet, Mihashi feels a rush of disappointment and relief. “I’m pretty sure I got all of the piece in your foot, but if you can still feel something, tell me, or go to a clinic.” He ruffles Mihashi’s hair roughly, tipping his head so he has to look at him. “ _Immediately_. Do _not_ go to work on it.”

Mihashi blinks wide eyes before nodding rapidly.

Abe straightens, looking satisfied. “Good. You need help getting to bed?”

“N-no!” _Something less weird than ‘I want to stay in the room with no shadows.’_ “I want…I need to shower?”

Abe looks like he’s considering saying something but then just shakes his head. “Okay. G’night.”

Mihashi watches him slip out the door, closing it behind himself. “’Night, t-t-Ta…” He shakes his head; Abe won’t hear, anyway.

_I wanted…_

_I wanted you to tell me it’s going to be okay._

He stares at his toes for a moment, lip caught in his teeth, then hops down carefully. He sheds his clothes and steps into the bathroom proper.

There’s something comforting about the pale green tiles, something indifferent and safe. Mihashi shuts the door securely behind himself. Then locks it. Then unlocks and locks it again, just to be sure. Smiling to himself, he locks the window, too, balancing precariously on the edge of the bathtub in a way he’s sure Abe would yell at him over.

And then he’s alone with the lights casting their clinical glow over him and the tidy collection of toiletries. Mihashi hums an absent-minded tune, kicking the stool down on the floor and squatting down on it as he turns on the showerhead and tugs it to spray down on his body.

The rush of the water bounces off the walls, washing away the sweat of the day and all his messy thoughts. Mihashi grabs a cloth, running it over his shoulder and arms, just enjoying its nubbly texture and the contrasting play of water over his skin. With a pleasingly loud slap, he lays the cloth across his knees, then scrubs his hands over his face. He keeps them there, pressing fingers against his eyelids to see the lights swim across his vision, twist in a spiral he’s sure Abe would know the meaning of. The space between his palms and his face collects tepid water and Mihashi laughs into it, a near-silent little punch of air bubbling up through it.

He falls still, cupping his hands with his thumbs pressed against his cheeks. The water rises up, covers his mouth, his nose, oddly still against his lips for all that its surface is dimpled by the spray, replacing what endlessly trickles down his wrists. He thinks, then, that perhaps he could open his mouth. Release all the ugliness jammed up inside him in one great bellow, let its vibration be eaten by the deadening weight of water. Then swallow, all of it, suck in all the water in the tank and the pipes under the city, devour the river, _every_ river, the entire ocean and everything in it. Fill himself up and dilute everything that’s terrible about him until that, too, becomes too small to see, hidden and drowned in the swell.

Mihashi releases the water to splash down his body, slapping his hands against his cheeks and drinking in the thick air with a shake of his head. He picks up the cloth again, staring dull-eyed at its limp folds. Then drops it to the floor and slides his hands back around his cheeks, blinking droplets out of his lashes as he puts his face into the spray. He lets the water rise, holds his breath as long as he can until air slips out of him with the loud clip of bubbles, until he gets that funny feeling in his nose as the water infiltrates.

It makes him think of summer and sunlight on the surface of rivers and lakes and the ocean and an outdoor pool. The sparkle of droplets on tanned arms and pale backs, the sound of splashing and voices raised in childlike excitement and encouragement and friendly jeering. Mihashi smiles into his hands at the memories that seem infinitely far away now, that belong to someone else, someone who thought for a moment…

And yet not so far away, perhaps only a meter or so beyond this very wall. Abe lying in his bed, a familiar sight curled loosely on his side or spread out on his back with an arm across his stomach. And upstairs, Sakaeguchi, perhaps now sleepy and sated with his face mashed into the pillow, no one there demanding his attention or taking up his space. And somewhere out there, all the others. Seven more sleeping stars in the night, glowing with their dreams and the light they carry inside. And more and more, Hama-chan and Shuu-chan and Shinooka and all their kouhai, his parents, constellations upon constellations of people to disappoint.

Mihashi curls over, arms tight around his knees and the water dragging down through his hair, darkened pennants at the edge of his vision. He chokes out a raw noise, mashing his face into his bony knees, shoulders trembling.

_No matter how hard I try, it still doesn’t make up for…me. And I can pretend, if it’s just for Hama-chan’s visit, I can pretend that I’m a real person, pretend I’m something more than a walking failure, but not…not in front of people who see me every day._

_And now…now I know, at least about Yuuto…_ Sobbing out a plaintive noise, he hunches over more. _They must want to get rid of me. But I…I’m… I’m still so selfish. I won’t leave until they make me. Until they have to_ say _they don’t want me._

With a wistful little smile, Mihashi reaches for the knob to turn up the heat, the sighs out a breath that turns into a groan. He scoots around on the stool, shrugging and rolling his shoulders, letting the hot water trail fingers through his hair and down his neck, collect in a rivulet down his spine to his butt.

If he closes his eyes, focuses really hard, he can pretend it’s not just water. Summon up the memory of Sakaeguchi’s hands on him, of the time, the one wonderful, beautiful time they had strayed up to stroke his back underneath his shirt. The memory of Abe’s hand in his hair just now, his touch on his legs and feet. The sight of that dark head between his knees. And other things as well, things he doesn’t want to recall too clearly because they still sting but if he just thinks about the physical, remembers a warm body next to and on top of his own, then, then, he can finally forget his miserable thoughts, at least for a while.

Mihashi’s hands are squashed between his thighs but he drags them free, over the curve of his quads, fingers pushing down, down into the softness of his groin. He turns suddenly, slipping forward and knees bumping painfully on the floor. He kneels with one arm braced against the wall and his eyes slit open. Head tipped down, he presses his fingers against his skin, down into the darker hair, watching the way his dick twitches with a shuddering breath. He lets his eyes fall shut, hand finding warm flesh; he holds it for a long moment, squeezing light just to feel himself getting fully hard as he thumbs through images in his memories for particular favourites. For glimpses of hipbone and stomach, tongues chasing fruit pulp and juice down wrists, chests expanding as their owners leaned back in chairs with a stretch and a great breath strong enough to draw him in. Smiles, grins, quirks of lips that warm him through with their affection and joy and also with the glimpse of teeth and lips and tongue that he longs to feel.

With a sharp jerk of his hips, Mihashi stutters into motion, choking out a rough breath. The water is both slippery and clingy, delicious as he starts to pump his hand up his dick. His free hand slowly curls into a fist against the tiles, his mind full of scattered fantasies. Flashes of sweaty bodies twined together, of hands holding him up, holding him down, gripping his chin to steady him for a quick bruise of a kiss and then turning him to claim the lips of another. Abe’s powerful thighs squeezed around him and Sakaeguchi behind, pinning Mihashi’s hips down with his own thrusts and fingers splayed over his chest. Or perhaps straddling Abe’s chest, so kind, so considerate as to position himself just _so,_ so that Mihashi could push himself up on shaky arms and suck his dick in, just _so_ , so that Abe could prop himself up on an elbow, other hand pushing up the curve of Sakaeguchi’s spine and then dragging down to part his butt and slick a wet tongue over his hole, tease, push inside, until Sakaeguchi’s caught between them, body an ecstatic arch and Abe pushing back into each of Mihashi’s thrusts so perfectly. Hands cupping his jaw or clawing at his arm, calves tight just under his butt and slim, sweaty thighs sliding against his forearms and noises, the _noises_ they might make, the noises he’d _heard_ dripping from Sakaeguchi’s lips, such beautiful acclaim, such beloved approval. The noises torn from his own throat to drown in the white noise of the water.

With a sob and a smile, Mihashi comes into his hand.


	4. Step out (keep it in your pocket)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO guess what I've been playing non-stop for the past couple weeks instead of writing 8D

Abe wakes up late and spectacularly grumpy.

At least he’d already planned to spend the day working from home, even before last night’s…disruption. Abe feels a flush creeping in from the edges of his face, and pulls his mouth into an even sourer line, even though there’s no one home to see him.

He slams his way through making coffee, satisfying in a childish way, and scowls at Mihashi’s carefully-written instructions for warming the miso soup on the stove.

_ That only happened  _ once _ , you don’t have to leave a note every time, you noisy, inconvenient, sloppy, airheaded, lying little-- _

He sighs heavily, switching on the stove. He knows damn well his irritation has little to do with the soup or the rest of the fussily laid-out breakfast waiting at “his” spot under a cover.

_ I’ll ask Yuuto to talk to him.  _ Abe grimaces, imagining that conversation. Better than actually thinking about the previous night. About how no one else seems to render him so achingly, resentfully frustrated.

He slams another cupboard door for good measure, then settles at the table.  _ Also see if Yuuto’ll interrogate him about the basement. _ He squints at the laundry room door, practically stabbing chopsticks into a small fried fish.

Even if he’d argued with Hamada, he agrees it makes no sense for them to involve themselves further. Better to leave it to the proper authorities. And yet the door still itches at the back of his mind. In classes, at the store, in the lab running his latest version of the obstacle coding with Amano-sensei, listening to Mihashi’s shuddering breath amplified by bathroom tiles with his fingers digging into his thigh just below the hem of his boxers. Always, it intrudes. Because  _ that _ , that  _ thing _ doesn’t make sense. But it must, somehow it must. There has to be some logic to its existence, if he could just look into it properly. Some sense and purpose to the whole ridiculous setup down there.

Abe’s always been happy to play within the rules. Bend them, certainly, push them, twist them to their absolute limits to suit his purposes and the needs of the moment. But always remain unassailably within their bounds, on the right side of that line in the dirt. Form stricture and guideline into a battlement from which he can defeat any assailing force with ease and a sadistic grin.

But that extends only so far as the rest of the world plays fair and conforms to that order as well. And then he finds out how far he can twist his own rules without breaking them.

Only a day had gone by before he signed a handheld scanner out of the department’s storeroom.

And then taken it back the very next day because this was stupid, he was  _ not _ going down there and anyway he has a goddamn phone. But on the other hand, the light down there was poor and the overhead bulbs had been busted.

Word had come from Hamada that all he got from contacting their kouban was a severe reprimand for entering a private residence without consent or cause. Until they had names at the least and preferably some concrete reason to believe their neighbours hadn’t just skipped out on rent, there would be no further investigation. Abe has a feeling Hamada left out key phrases like “I fought a monster,” but he can’t know for sure because all of this is relayed in Mihashi’s halting syllables, his hazel eyes huge and locked on Abe’s face as if he expected him to wave a magic wand and make it all better. And Abe staring back dumbly, because hadn’t they long ago moved past the point where Mihashi expected him to catch him every time the ground felt unsteady? What the hell had happened to his pitcher?

Mysteries even more stubborn than the room.

So a few days later he signed the scanner out again and left it sitting on his desk in mute temptation and reproach. And near it, fetched out of the closet to lean between his desk and the wall, an old metal bat. Perhaps not ideal for close-quarters fighting, but comforting in its familiarity, sure in his hand like an old friend.

Abe leans his elbows on the kitchen table, pressing fingers up the bridge of his nose and out over his eyebrows to rub at him temples. Then leans back in the chair with a long exhale, giving the laundry room door another stern look.

_Neither of them should be home until the afternoon._ _We’ve already been down there, so there’ll be traces of us anyway. I’ll wear gloves, make sure I put everything back exactly._ He knows goddamn well it’s no real justification or excuse for what he has planned. He also knows himself well enough to know he’s going to do it anyway.

Indecision sits far worse with Abe than rule-breaking.

Bat in one hand, laptop and scanner under the other arm, he descends the stairs, and after an optimistic knock, opens the door.

Wan daylight seeps through the curtains, the scene in the basement almost seeming  _ more _ surreal in its pale clarity. Abe holds still for a long moment, listening for any sound of movement. But there are only the fuzzy sounds of the city and an old house settling, and no prickle of  _ watching _ up his shoulderblades, so he breathes out and proceeds.

Careful photos from multiple angles, the flash of his phone blinding in the dim light. Cement the correct state of things, chaotic as they might be. And then, heart thumping steadily in his chest, he cracks open one of the notebooks.

And then squints at it, mouth pulling into a wide, flat line.

Abe turns it upside-down. Then sideways. Then back so most of the crabbed writing is upright (he thinks).

It… _ appears _ to be schematics for a range of devices. A lot of it’s written in an impenetrable shorthand, and while some of the notations and half-finished equations are things he recognises, some of them are either beyond his knowledge, or…possibly just complete and utter nonsense, judging by some of the stuff in here. One appears to be a briefcase. With teeth. And what looks like a complicated branching digestive tract. Abe makes a note to be extra cautious about handling…everything.

The whole thing is a cornucopia of Geiger-esque bullshit, labelled fanciful things like “Janus Wedge” and “Trickster’s Web.” Something called “Kalaratri’s Noose,” which appears to have absolutely nothing to do with ropes but reminds him of the device in the closet. From what he can gather, it was meant to pump a steady supply of a sedative gas (expressed helpfully via a small drawing of a little monster with closed eyes and little z’s coming from it) into the tanks above. When he carefully checks behind the closet door, he can see several heavy gas canisters. And to his relief, nothing resembling lungs or any other body parts.

It’s also the first time he really parses the significance of the word he’s seen written over and over in the katakana of the English word. Shadow, which he thinks is a  _ spectacularly _ unoriginal name for the monsters.

_ Might as well call them Darks. Blobs. But I guess Shadows it is. _

The last few pages are covered with what look more like sketches than schematics, accompanied with a lot more notations like ??? or crossed out with a red slash. Finally, Abe replaces the notebook in its faint rectangle of dust, and picks up another.

It appears to be lecture notes for some kind of geology class, complete with a heavily-circled midterm date scrawled in the margin in amongst meandering doodles of flowers and eyes. It doesn’t seem that relevant, but Abe dutifully pans the wand across a few pages of notes on permafrost erosion, staring at them blandly. Then stops, frowning. The notes continue to be banal, but the drawings change. Shadows, drawn by a different hand and sporting fanciful masks but still recognisable in their amorphousness. And other things, strange beasts and imposing figures, sometimes taking up entire pages and surrounded with notes of  _ not quite right _ ,  _ more legs?? _ , and  _ is it a robot?? _

_ Are there more kinds of Shadow than the thing we saw? Are these something else entirely? _ Abe closes the notebook with a grumble; dubious artistic merit and even more dubious helpfulness.

A lot of what he finds is similarly useless. Scraps of paper with strings of notations and numbers, values for… _ something _ . Even Abe’s patience has limits and he stops trying to scan everything, just samples things quickly before moving on. Broken equipment he’s reluctant to touch but does his best to photograph thoroughly.

Finally, sunlight now angling steeply through the west windows, he’s left staring down the computers. He takes the scanner back upstairs, trading it for a portable hard drive, then jogs back down.

_ You’d better not be full of viruses. _

Except he hesitates with the cable millimeters from the port. Computers, unlike notebooks, keep records of things like when files were opened, when devices were connected, records that can’t be erased by nitrile gloves or the extremely limited (nonexistent) hacking skills of Abe Takaya. Reluctantly, he stuffs the drive into a back pocket, glaring at the monitor like it’s its fault.

And then staring with a mixture of consternation and joyful discovery at the archaic item clipped on top that he somehow hadn’t registered before: a camera.

Abe slaps his hands against the table’s edge in frustration. Then sheepishly pats a dislodged pen back into place.

_ There could be  _ video _ of whatever went on down here. Videos, and I can’t fucking look at them. _ He hangs his head for a second, then looks up with a deep inhale, letting the air stream out through his nose slowly.

One of the monitors has woken up from his jostling, but he can’t tell much of use from glowering at the desktop. A lot of the icons look…aggressively normal. Email, stat analysis, word processing, and what look like some device-proprietary software. He eyes them guiltily, mind straying back to his own work upstairs lying neglected. Not to mention the other two might come home early, and ‘don’t get caught’ has always been an excellent rule to live by.

Abe pushes upright, turning to to peer around the room one last time, frowning.

_ None of this explains what the hell Mihashi was doing down here last night. _

_ I suppose I could ask him. _

Abe stares at another jumble of wires for a beat, then snorts with laughter as he gathers his things.

It’s one of the nights they end up eating dinner all together. Abe sinks down with his back to one arm of the couch and steaming bowl in hand. Sakaeguchi sets down his own bowl in exchange for the remote, taking up post on the other end. He flicks on the TV, switching it to the local news channel while they wait for Mihashi to finish serving himself. A segment on school lunches wraps up, smiling children waving chopsticks and goofing off with each others’ aprons giving way to the anchors.

_ “According to sanitation authorities, there has been a marked uptick in roadkill incidents over the past months, and residents are advised to keep pets indoors to avoid accidents. Some have raised concerns that these unfortunate events are the work of delinquent gangs, due to the peculiar location of the--” _

Sakaeguchi inhales like he’s about to say something, so Abe hastily grabs the remote from between them and flicks to another channel at random. He can feel Sakaeguchi trying to give him a Look, but decides to pretend he’s immediately engrossed in the comedy on screen.

Before Sakaeguchi can escalate from Looks to Pointed Throat-Clearing, Mihashi steps into the room, a blanket from his bed draped over his shoulders in thick folds like a citrus-striped cape. He dithers, glancing between them; Abe lets his eyes fall shut so he can’t get irritated. But after a second, Mihashi flops down between them on the floor, nestling down and wrapping the blanket around himself with a contented little hum.

Sakaeguchi says a light, “Itadakimasu!” and reaches for his bowl.

Abe narrows his eyes at the back of Mihashi’s head, then nudges his toes against Mihashi’s shoulder. “Oi. Sit up.”

Mihashi flinches, spine straightening.

“I meant up here.”

“It’s okay! I’m…fine!”

Mihashi’s ear is red, along with what Abe can see of his cheek, which doesn’t make sense. Abe’s had more than his fill of doesn’t make sense today. “You’ve been on your feet all day. You need to rest.”

Mihashi hunches again, fussing with the edges of the blanket. “I know! I… _ am! _ Resting.” As if to make his point, he wiggles in place, slouching against the couch.

“Takaya, he’s perfectly fine sitting down there. However,” Sakaeguchi reaches down, squeezing Mihashi’s shoulder, “there’s  _ plenty _ of room for you up here, if you want.”

Mihashi flinches violently. Then hauls his blanket over his head, shoulders hunched up to his ears.

That’s enough, as far as Abe’s concerned. He sets his bowl down with a  _ clack _ , then bends forward, jamming his hands about where he thinks Mihashi’s armpits are, and  _ hauls _ . Mihashi squawks, pointy elbows flying as Abe drags him against the couch.

“C’mon, stop being ridiculous!”

“I’m… _ not! _ ”

“You  _ are! _ ”

Abe relaxes his hold, and Mihashi yelps triumphantly, turning instantly to an affronted garble when Abe just grabs him around the chest. Mihashi’s heavier than he’d expected, makes him feel too warm. Probably just the effort of fighting against Mihashi’s flailing limbs. But he’s not  _ too _ heavy and Abe’s fucking determined, now.

There’s a bump as Mihashi’s ass clears the edge of the couch and Abe loosens his hold enough to get a better grip, crying out a warning when Mihashi narrowly misses kicking his bowl over. Abe scrambles to get a containing hold on him again and pull him up more solidly, grabbing side and thigh and whatever body part reveals itself from under the blanket.

And then Abe stops for half a breath, fingers hooked under Mihashi’s arm and Mihashi’s elbow digging into his sternum, because there’s a sound, a sound that leaves him feeling broken open. Mihashi’s laughing.

Abe’s eyes find Sakaeguchi’s across the panting, giggling mess between them, Sakaeguchi’s face full of the same startelement Abe’s sure is written plain on his own. But Sakaeguchi’s expression morphs into a sly smile and quick as a whip, he dips forward to feather his fingers up Mihashi’s stomach, up his ribs, glancing contact with Abe’s frozen hands, then away again. Mihashi yelps, then hiccups into another laugh, twisting like a fish until he’s half-lying across the couch with his head jammed back against Abe’s collarbone, grabbing at Sakaeguchi’s hands.

A part of him’s fascinated. It’s so peculiar how Mihashi squirms and twitches out from under their hands, and yet he doesn’t actually seem to be trying to escape. Abe wonders what it must feel like, to leave Mihashi with his face bright red and his eyes squeezed tight, mouth open ridiculously wide but barely making a noise now. But Mihashi’s still got enough control to fight his way upright with a gasp and flop forwards to grab at Sakaeguchi. And then it’s Sakaeguchi’s turn to yell indignantly, jerking his elbows in against his sides.

Thwarted, Mihashi dives for Sakaeguchi’s knees. It hadn’t occurred to Abe before that there might be  _ more _ places people could be tickled. Now he’s curious, reaching down to graze a fingertip along the scrunched-up sole of Mihashi’s foot. And then barely avoids getting cracked in the nose by Mihashi’s head as he jerks in a tight arch.

God, it just feels so good to be crashing against each other and fighting a callused grip on his wrist with their laughter rising like froth all around them. To watch the other two’s grinning faces and heaving shoulders and the frankly awe-inspiring contortions they go through. And yet somehow staying here in a pile of limbs and laughter and warmth, bodies pressed together and Mihashi’s leg curled around Sakaeguchi’s thigh and shirts somehow slowly edging up stomachs.

Suddenly things feel weird and Abe feels stupidly shut out of their experience, this and everything else they seem to share so blithely, this easy thing building between them. The particular flush of Sakaeguchi’s cheeks and the eager way he leans over Mihashi, and Mihashi’s hauling on his shirt with one hand even though his other foot’s planted squarely on Sakaeguchi’s chest and pushing, and shit, Abe makes the mistake of looking down the wriggling comma of Mihashi’s body to his crotch, and he’s not positive but he’s sure enough to feel a flood of embarrassment and like it’s  _ him _ and  _ his _ feelings intruding here.

Abe sits back abruptly, swinging around to face forward; Mihashi drops back with his head bumping on Abe’s thigh and Sakaeguchi scrambling not to fall on top. Mihashi’s giving him this funny wide-eyed smile, gasping to catch his breath and still hanging onto Sakaeguchi’s shirt. Abe huffs out a laugh, tousling Mihashi’s hair roughly before shoving his fingers under to haul him up, somehow smothering the part of him that wants so desperately to keep Mihashi close for as long as possible.

“Supper’s getting cold.” He feels like an asshole.

Sakaeguchi settles back, scrubbing at the corners of his eyes. “Yeah… Hoo, my stomach hurts!”

Mihashi straightens, then dives after the blanket where it’s fallen to the floor. He pulls most of it in a loose pile over his lap before finally leaning forwards to claim his (miraculously unspilled) bowl.

Abe digs in too, trying not to think about confirmed suspicions. Or the feel of Mihashi writhing against his chest while two sets of hands played him like virtuosos. Of course, trying to clear his mind just brings him back to his covert investigation. Abe shoves a piece of just-cooked broccoli in his mouth and crunches it viciously.

He catches Sakaeguchi glancing over at them a couple times. At first with a smile, then giving Abe a more appraising look, a hint of worry in his drawn-up eyebrows. Abe colours a little, doing his best to ignore him. At least Mihashi’s between them, saving him from any consoling hand-squeezing or murmured reassurance that he doesn’t fucking need, thanks. He just wants to enjoy this stillness. The delicious food, the ridiculous sketch playing out on TV, the easy camaraderie that still miraculously lingers in the air.

That’s what he tells himself. Also tells himself that when he excuses himself to his room and shuts the door, it’s because he’s going to get to work. Maybe do some readings.

_ I’ll just organise the scanned images. Won’t take long… _

With a gruff noise, Abe pushes away from his desk and stands, pacing the length of his room. Then returns, leaning heavily on the back of his chair. He makes a low, thoughtful noise, then clicks through to email. Already typing, he tilts his hips to bump the back of the chair out of the way before sliding into it.

Abe Takaya has always played by certain rules, and one of those is go with your gut.

 

[To: Nishihiro Shintarou (nishihero@mail.yahoo.co.jp)]  
[From: Abe Takaya]  
[03/11/XX--07:43pm]  
[Subject: Hey.]  
[Long time no see. Don’t know if there’s any chance you’re still using this email but I figured I’d try anyway.  
I don’t even know what to tell you about this garbage. I know it’s not exactly your field, probably not ANYBODY’S field. But you’ve always been into all sorts of subjects, and I figured if anyone can make heads or tails of these notes, it’s you. Or at least you can point me towards someone who will know.]  
[Attached: 5 files]

 

[To: Abe Takaya]  
[Subject: Hi!]  
[It’s sure been a while. Eh hehe, I don’t use that one anymore, but I still have it set up to forward stuff! :D My new one is nishishin@KU.co.jp  
Oh those things! You’re taking the game awfully seriously. :o]

 

[To: Nishihiro Shintarou]  
[Subject: what]  
[no these are from my house what do you mean “those things” have you seen this crap before]

 

[To: Nishihiro Shintarou]  
[No Subject]  
[what do you mean game]

 

Nishihiro’s response is a link to a website. With an unpleasant feeling of doom, Abe clicks through. It’s…a frighteningly banal wordpress blog. Makes him think a bit of faculty websites. As he scrolls down, there are videos in some of the posts, a couple talking heads. Nothing too spectacular, though something about them itches at the back of his mind.

Then, under the title “✩~~Raizoki’s Playground~~✩” is a photo of the last of the schematics he’d seen earlier.

Abe scrolls back to a video. It was better lit, tidier, but there’s no mistaking the squat basement kitchen.

 

[To: Nishihiro Shintarou]  
[Subject: Give me your number.]  
[I think we should talk.]

 

A minute or two later, the reply comes. Abe fishes out his phone, going to listen at the door briefly. The TV’s still on; sounds like shounen something-or-other. Loud enough. Abe keys in the info, walking back to his desk.

Nishihiro picks up quickly. “Hey! How are you, anyway?”

“I’m…” Abe considers for a moment. “That’s complicated, but I guess alright. You?”

“Good, I suppose. Run off my feet, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, y’know? Looking forward to the break.”

“Yeah.” Abe settles back in his chair, chafing at the pleasantries.

“So you--”

“What the--”

Nishihiro chuckles and says, “Go ahead.”

“Okay. What…what am I even looking at, here?”

“It’s an ARG.” Another self-conscious laugh. “At least, as far as anyone knows.”

“ARG?”

“Alternate reality game. Basically, an interactive puzzle-slash-art piece. Been used a few times as promotions? But it’s anyone’s guess what  _ this _ one’s selling.”

“Sounds annoying.”

Nishihiro’s laughter is a little easier. “I think they’re pretty cool in concept, though I don’t really have time to play along these days, just catch up with the community from time to time.” He hums uncertainly. “You say it’s… What did you mean, ‘your house’?”

“I mean that the images I sent you, I scanned myself out of some crazy person’s notebook in the basement of the house I’m renting. And these videos were shot in the same place.”

There’s brief silence. “You mean the set is in your basement?” Nishihiro’s tone is patient, as though he’s trying to buy time to reach a more sensible conclusion than the one barrelling towards him. “That’s pretty cool! Did they give you a tour?”

“It’s not a set.”

Uncomfortable silence.

“Not unless these guys can create,” he cringes at speaking the word aloud, “monsters made out of darkness that spit fire when they’re scared. Oh, and melt. It melted.”

A longer silence. Then the creaked protest of a chair as Nishihiro stands, soft padding as he paces a small space.

_ Dorm…? I bet Nishihiro would never land his sorry ass in hell house with his weirdo teenage crush and a meddlesome fussbudget, lucky bastard. _

Nishihiro stills, his tone composed and pleasant as ever but with a strained note. “I’m having a little trouble…accepting just what you’re telling me here.”

Abe laughs, a bit of a nasty tinge to it. “You and me both. We--Yuuto, Hamada, and me--all encountered…I think these people are calling them Shadows? A Shadow. It came at us. Hamada killed it. With his flashlight.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Yes,” he deadpans, “I decided to contact a highschool friend on a weeknight all to pull an elaborate practical joke.”

“Please tell me that’s it.” There’s a slow inhale, the sound of tired rubbing. “If it’s…if they’re… Abe, if those things are real, if what’s in your basement is--”

“It’s real.”

“Wait, where…where were  _ they? _ The acto--the researchers?”

“Dunno. The suite was deserted.”  _ Researchers? _

Another tight silence. “Oh god…the… They might still be in there… I…I feel sick.” Nishihiro’s chair squeaks.

“In where,” Abe asks, having a feeling he’s not going to like the answer.

“In the…in the TV.”

Making a pained noise, Abe tips his head back. “In the TV.”

“You think I’m messing with  _ you _ , now?”

“No. Okay.” Abe sucks in a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “What do you-- No. Next step is I look through this…blog. I assume it’ll all become clear.”

“Well, clearer than I’m sure  _ I _ could make it. But…Abe…are you safe?”

“Yeah, we think so. Yuuto says he’s been hearing those things for a while, but so far, we’ve only run into one.”

“Oh? You’re living with Yuuto-kun, then? That must be nice.”

That was not the part he expected Nishihiro to ask about. “Yeah, him and Ren. Rent was cheap, and when we came to look at the place, somehow they didn’t mention the basement full of bullshit and monsters.”

Nishihiro chuckles. “Can’t blame them… You’ll have to tell me how  _ that _ fell together sometime.”

“Yeah. But for now…”

“You’ve got stuff to look into. Right. I’ll…I’m gonna check it out again, too. I just…I had a friend…” Abe waist impatiently for Nishihiro to continue, but he just makes a thoughtful noise before inhaling slowly. “If you want to send anything else you’ve got, feel free. I’ll let you know if I have anything to tell you.”

“All right.” Abe sighs. “Thanks, Shintarou.”

“No pro-- Well, I guess it’s not a ‘no problem’ kind of situation, is it? I’m glad to help. You’re sure… You’re certain you guys’ll be okay?”

“I’m not certain of much at this point. But don’t keep yourself up over us.”

“…Okay. G’night, Takaya-kun. Take care.”

“Night. You too.”

Abe taps the ‘end call’ button, setting his phone down beside the laptop. He scrolls down to the bottom of the page, mouse hovering over the ‘FIRST’ button. But then he hits the home key instead.

_ I’ve seen enough horror films to know you always wanna watch the last one first. _

The video he clicks shows a middle-aged man with his hands over his face. The man sighs, then drags his knobbly hands down, covering his mouth for a brief second before they drop off frame.

> _ We went back in there today, like we’d planned. There were…new Paths. _ [huff of laughter] _ Sakiyama just fell down on her ass, just--  _ [gesturing off screen]  _ foop!--down, crying. And it seems…different in there. _ [another humourless laugh] _ I’d apologise for making an unscientific observation, but we’re so damn far past that at this point, so what the hell. It feels…bigger, in there. And it seems flat, like…like the whole Tower fell over on its side. Couldn’t’ve done that when we first went in with the damn bike, could it? _
> 
> _ Oh, and our Paths still seem to be there, but…everything’s shifted. We knew it changed, but… _ [slightly hysterical laugh, followed by the man staring off camera fixedly]
> 
> _ Would it sound odd to say it feels…it feels hungry? It’s like some vast insect that devours and devours until it pupates into something new, but then it just devours again. Like if it could just get big enough, it’d eat the whole world if no one stops it. We have to…we have to… _ [scrubs hands over face]
> 
> _ We’ll know more when we go back in there, but for tonight, we’re regrouping, trying to figure out what the hell this means. I’m trying to hold everyone together, but… _ [he seems to struggle internally]  _ I’m scared, too. It feels kind of good to admit that. I’m scared, and they know it. And…actually, we may leave Sakiyama behind entirely to watch the machines. We’ve got the other two now, and without a Persona, not like she’s much use…  _ [fingers rubbing across eyes, a pained groan] _ And we…we thought we were getting so close to the top, too. _
> 
> [resigned sigh] _ Well. That’s just how it is. Ishikawa, end log. _

Abe stares at the black rectangle for a moment. Then looks at the date stamp on the entry. It’s from a date in early November. He slouches back in his chair.

_ Four months. Four months, and counting Sakiyama and the ass who drew those schematics, three people potentially missing. At least. _

Abe rubs his forehead, then heaves himself up, heading for the kitchen and coffee. It’s gonna be a long night.

While it’s brewing, he pokes his nose into the living room. He can’t see anyone’s head above the couch, even though the TV still blares. When he steps closer, he discovers Mihashi lying curled under his blanket fast asleep despite the noise.

Abe stares down at him, tight with contained laughter. And tense too with urge to walk around the couch, tug on Mihashi to pull him around on his back and fall down, nuzzle on top of him and close his eyes too. Forget the coffee, forget the basement, the videos, forget everything.

Instead, he plucks the remote out of Mihashi’s limp hold, switching the TV off. “Ren.” No response. “Ren?” A faint murmur of sound; Mihashi turns his face into the couch cushion. “Ren. Get up. Go to bed properly.”

“Mmmkay…” Mihashi wriggles a little more, but then falls still.

Abe exchanges an unimpressed glare with his distorted reflection in the TV, then stalks around the couch and shakes Mihashi’s shoulder. “Oi. Up. You can’t sleep here.”

More grumbling, an incoherent and insincere assertion that he’s going to bed.

An idea occurs to Abe, an idea that seems as practical as it is embarrassing.

Before he can lose his nerve (or perhaps recover his senses), Abe turns, dropping to perch on the edge of the couch. “C’mon, lump,” he says, reaching back and wedging encouraging fingers under Mihashi’s shoulder. Mihashi grumbles out more unfairly endearing noises, but then, with a loud inhale, sits up. Abe’s mouth crooks up. “Make sure to grab your blanket.”

“Nnkay… Wha’re…” Mihashi’s breath ghosts over his nape.

Abe reflects that this was perhaps an exceptionally poor choice.

Smothering thought in that direction, he reaches back, making grabby motions. “I’ll carry you to bed. Seems like you’re not going to make it all the way there on your own, and I don’t want to trip over you in the night.” He tries to keep his tone light.

Mihashi hesitates for a beat longer, then breathes out a soft, ridiculously happy noise, lurching against Abe’s back and draping his arms around his shoulders.

“Blanket?”

“Mm.” Mihashi scuffles around, wrapping the blanket and his arms around Abe’s shoulders. Soft heat and the tickle of Mihashi’s hair against his neck and his bent knees pressing around Abe’s hips.

It’s only when Mihashi makes a vague questioning noise that Abe realises he’s just been sitting there loosely holding him. Abe shakes his head and gets a proper grip on Mihashi, feeling a little coil of smugness at how steadily he stands.

If he walks a little slow, he can tell himself it’s out of carefulness, not out of a desire to prolong this. Not so he can savour Mihashi rubbing his cheek against his shoulder with a contented hum, or squeezing Abe’s hips between his knees. Not to enjoy curling his fingers on the softness of Mihashi’s thighs.

Not to enjoy the edge of Mihashi’s lips brushing his neck as he speaks. “Takaya is…comfy…”

Abe stands stock still, blinking into the gloom of the hallway. He forces himself to take another step. “Go back to sleep.”

Mihashi hums agreement, but rather than politely return to pillowing his head on Abe’s shoulder, he squashes his nose against the bare skin just above the collar of Abe’s sweater. Abe quickens his steps, staring unseeing at the end of the hall. When he lets go to grab the doorknob, Mihashi’s thighs squeeze tighter, leaving Abe swallowing a curse. Somehow, he makes it across the room (doing his best not to cringe when he steps in something sticky), turns, and drops down with significantly less grace than he’d stood.

Releases Mihashi’s legs, and sits.

And sits.

“Ren…?” No answer, only a slight twitch of his arms.  _ Did he actually fall back asleep in those five seconds? _ Abe rolls his eyes, reaching up to disengage Mihashi’s arms before twisting to lower him to the bed.

He pushes himself to his feet, eyeing Mihashi’s jeans. “Ren, you should,” he swallows, “at least undress.” Not giving him a chance to do so, he reaches for the sheets kicked down to the end of the bed, twitching the blanket out of the way and then pulling them up. Mihashi nestles down in the bed with a vague noise of assent and does absolutely nothing about his clothes. Abe pulls a face as he shakes the blanket out over top, but he’s honestly relieved.

As he straightens it, a skinny arm darts out, Mihashi’s grip surprisingly sure for someone Abe’d thought was basically unconscious. He freezes, meeting Mihashi’s sleepy gaze, warring with himself.

Finally, he breaks eye contact. “Mihashi. I’m not Yuuto.”

He can’t see, but he can still feel Mihashi’s eyes on him as the seconds tic by. And then, almost apologetic, Mihashi mumbles, “I know,” and lets him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's very Exposition-y and im Sorry I'll try to have the next one up soon...er...
> 
> I so often write stuff like it's super moe while irl I'm like miss me with that bs. a grown-ass human needing you to haul them to bed is 0% cute let me tell you. maybe if it's Mihashi. Maybe.
> 
> Also yes, name usage shifts are intentional.


	5. Look at me (keep it shut)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "hey zets why dont u update one of the fics that people actually give half a fuck about" great idea why dont u eat my entire stubborn ass

Sakaeguchi reaches the bottom step and pushes through the door, instantly greeted by the aroma of coffee. Also an agitated Abe, dark smudges under his eyes and hair sticking up in clumps like he’s spent all night mussing his hands through it. Hands which are currently forcing a mug of coffee into Sakaeguchi’s and then clamping tight on his upper arm, pulling him to the table and an open laptop.

“Taka… I mean thanks, but…what’s…?”

Abe firmly plonks him down in a chair. “You need to check out this website. Maybe not right now, but soon.” He leaves one hand on the back of the chair, the other splayed on the table, and looms over Sakaeguchi in a way that says _or now, you could look at it right now_ and is far too distracting for first thing in the morning.

Sakaeguchi rubs at his cheek. “Have you even slept?”

“What? No. Not important. _Look._ ”

He might as well appease Abe for the moment. Dutifully, he sips the coffee (perfectly sweetened, of course) and forces his bleary eyes to focus on the screen.

Then feels as awake as if someone had dumped ice water on him.

“Takaya, that’s our house, that’s the _basement_ \--”

“Yeah. Watch some of the videos, it’s wild. They talk all about the Shadows--that’s what they are, those things, and--”

“Why is our house on the internet?” he asks pleadingly.

“That, can’t tell you. There doesn’t seem to be any particular _reason_ these idiots set up here. It’s all just…so much stupid coincidence. Pissing me off, frankly. And the people--there’s comments, discussion on these blog posts. They think it’s a game! A story they’re meant to be following along with. But it’s not, we _know_ it’s not.”

Sakaeguchi stares at him for a long moment, a sense of impending doom soaking into him, then sighs. “Can I go take a piss first?”

He fetches himself some breakfast too, but Abe’s hovering impatiently in the background so there’s nothing for it but to cooperate and settle back down.

The video opens on an older man in a crisp pale blue dress shirt and a buzzcut introducing himself as Ishikawa and talking in a haughty voice about research objectives. And almost immediately devolving into a rant about new-fangled technologies, and what the hell was wrong with good old pen-and-paper and _data_ , why does he have to be “vee-logging” his “personal experiences”, and somehow now he’s talking about SNS and kids with their cellphones in lecture and Sakaeguchi starts to tune out a little.

It’s particularly hard to focus with Abe leaning on the back of his chair, buzzing with excitement and redolent of coffee.

Sakaeguchi side-eyes him a couple times as he crunches toast, then shoves Abe’s face away with the back of his wrist. “How much coffee have you had? Go to sleep.”

“I’m fine.”

“Interesting,” he says archly before biting off another mouthful. He chews meditatively, trying to think of a way to get Abe to at least give him a bit more space as Ishikawa drones on in the background, now on some tirade about how he’d had half a mind to throw the little twerp out of his office when he came in spouting his nonsense about monsters and walking into TVs and even after that, with--

Sakaeguchi smacks at the keyboard to pause. “What…he just…”

“Yeah. Yeah. And guess what?”

Pretty sure he’s not gonna like the answer, Sakaeguchi asks, “…What?”

“I tried it. It works.”

“You _what?!_ ”

Maybe it’s sleep deprivation, but Abe actually flinches at the volume, but he’s barely daunted. “C’mon, I’ll show you. I mean, I didn’t _walk_ in, but…” He’s already standing, grip tight on Sakaeguchi’s shirt, and hauls him along with barely a chance to protest or drop his toast.

The next thing he knows, they’re standing in front of their heretofore innocuous TV, and Sakaeguchi’s stomach is already tying itself in unpleasant knots even before Abe’s done more than give him a tense, toothy grin.

He plops down on the coffee table when Abe sticks his arm into the black glass up to his elbow.

 _It’s a trick. It’s a trick or I’m dreaming, it’s not_ real.

Except Abe doesn’t have time for idiot pranks and he can tell by the ache in his gut and the bitter coffee aftertaste on his tongue that he’s very much awake.

Sakaeguchi peers up at Abe, mouth an unhappy line. “Did you show Mihashi?”

“You kidding? He’d’ve been flipping out all day. You do it now.”

“W- _what??_ ”

“See if you can do it. I wanna know if it’s person-specific, or it’s got to do with having this information, or--”

“I…I’m not sticking my hand in there!”

Abe gives him an offended look. “It doesn’t hurt or anything.”

Feeling just as affronted, Sakaeguchi glares right back. “That’s not the point!”

Breaking eye contact, Abe draws his arm out with an unpleasant rippling. Yes, his skin is unscathed.

Not feeling especially reassured, Sakaeguchi curls his hand into a fist, holding it down next to his thigh for a second. In that moment, he hates Abe a little, but just as quickly he squashes the thought down as he rolls forward onto his knees and lifts a hand towards the screen.

_What if it doesn’t work? Obviously, it won’t. It can’t. Except what if it can? What if it does work and oh man it’s going to feel weird and what the hell is it going to mean and--_

Sakaeguchi realises he’s squinched his eyes shut. He opens them and is somehow unsurprised to see his fingers half-submerged in the screen.

It feels like…nothing. Perhaps the faintest sense of _resistance_ , like sticking his hand in tepid bath water, but barely even that. Sakaeguchi breathes out something resembling a laugh, sliding his hand deeper and wiggling his fingers to watch the surface of the TV ripple and slosh like the surface of a pool.

“I don’t even know where to… Does the TV still work?”

“Yes, and I wouldn’t do that if I were you. That’s seriously your first concern?”

“Eh?”

“Waving around in there. Don’t.”

Sakaeguchi’s gut is a solid block of ice. He slowly swivels his head to look at his arm.

As if waiting for its cue, something solid brushes ever-so-gently against his ring finger, a kiss of contact like a fish in a stream.

Sakaeguchi snatches his hand out, flinging himself back and smacking into the edge of the coffee table.

Abe rubs his chin thoughtfully. “They’re probably still all stirred up from when I was experimenting earlier. One of ‘em gave me a nasty shock.” He flexes his hand.

“ _They_.”

“Well, I assume there’s more than one.”

“ _Experimenting_.”

“Yeah, look…” Abe crouches beside the TV, grabbing what turns out to be a clean jam jar.

“What is this? Why are you giving me recycling?” Sakaeguchi turns it in his hands, wondering whether to open it.

“Not recycling. Impromptu sample collection. I was trying to see if the medium in there’s something you could scoop up, but no dice. Unless it’s a completely invisible gas; didn’t feel like sticking my face in to see.”

Sakaeguchi nearly drops the jar, making an undignified strangled noise. “Did it not occur to you how dangerous that could be?!”

Abe gives him a patient look. “It’s fine. Those guys were breathing this stuff. And…well, I s’pose I don’t know they were totally fine, but they _seemed_ okay…” Abe frowns at the TV. “Sort of.”

“ _Sort_ of.” Sakaeguchi grits out an aggravated noise. He considers throwing the jar at Abe, but concludes it would be minimally comforting. And there’s the chance he might hit the TV and unleash Untold Horrors.

“Look, I’m not any happier about all this than you…”

Sakaeguchi pulls a face, because perhaps not _happy_ , no, but… There’s a glint in Abe’s eye and a kind of relaxed focus to him. The feeling like he’s ready to whip a pick-off at you. And despite his misgivings, it’s hard not to get sucked into that excitement, that readiness.

“No, I get it. This is…” Sakaeguchi eyes the TV. “It’s hard not to want to tease it apart.” He sets the jar back down, scrubbing a hand back through his hair. His own laughter sounds ever so slightly hysterical. “And hey, I guess at least you haven’t been messing around in the basement!”

“Yeah.”

There’s something carefully schooled about Abe’s voice and face that fills Sakaeguchi’s stomach with lead. “You…you _didn’t_ go down there, right?”

He’s glad Abe hasn’t slept, glad it means the gears in his head take half a second to work, glad Sakaeguchi can stop him before he lies outright.

“You did. _Shit,_ Takaya, that’s--”

“I know it was stupid.”

“And probably--I don’t know, _illegal_ at this point, or something! And what if…what if one of those…”

“But they _didn’t_. And now I know what’s going on, so it was worthwhile!”

“Worthwh--” Sakaeguchi presses his lips together, glaring pointedly at Abe’s hand. “Don’t talk about it like it’s some fun mystery! Do you think this is fucking game?”

“No, I-- I’m _taking_ this seriously! That’s why I don’t wanna be in the dark about it!”

“‘Taking it seriously’. Well, that’s just great.”

“ _Yes._ ”

They glower at each other for a tense moment.

 _Sometimes, you could do with a little less self-assurance. A lot less._ Sakaeguchi closes his eyes. “I don’t know what you want from me. Do you want me to pat you on the back, tell you you’ve done the right thing? Thank you for _nobly_ unraveling the Secret of Our Spooky Basement?”

Abe stands, crossing his arms across his chest. “No. The hell? I just…I thought…” He sighs heavily. “Will you at least watch the other videos?”

Sakaeguchi has the peevish urge to refuse. “Fine. _If_ ,” he fixes Abe with a direct stare, “you go to bed.”

“I have class.”

“You won’t be able to focus.”

“I won’t be able to sleep.”

Another stare down that Sakaeguchi knows he’s going to lose. He draws his knees up, resting his elbows on them loosely for a moment with his head hanging. Finally, he heaves to his feet, muttering, “Whatever. Do what you want. I know you will anyway,” before starting back towards the kitchen.

The side of Abe’s hand jabs into his arm, hard enough to startle but not hurt much. “Hey, screw you.”

Sakaeguchi stares back at him balefully, mouth pulled into an unhappy line. After a moment, Abe drops his hand.

* * *

 

The clip is from a variety show, uploaded to YouTube but taken down within the hour. But not before it was captured, reproduced, transformed, and strewn across SNSs until there was no hope of rooting it out. Then again, maybe that was the idea.

Hanai ignores it, of course. Or tries. But even this far removed, some people have a way of getting in your face until you have to look at them head-on. Or at least watch the video.

Two hosts welcome the audience back from a commercial break with applause as carefully even and amicable as their smiles. They humbly request the viewers enjoy this _very special_ performance by a trio of perfectly same-not-same young women.

They dance, they sing, the smile, they are excellent at what they do, they are utterly forgettable, and they are not the reason this segment spreads like an oil spill. Afterwards, they sit, pressed together on a couch with the most demure sheen of sweat on their brows. Next to them, a pair of headlining actors from a prime-time medical drama and a young spokesperson for some non-threatening but compelling humanitarian agency who has a cage at his feet with an exotic-looking small feline watching everything warily.

And in their midst, dressed impeccably by some stylist in slim dark-wash jeans and an iron-grey herringbone sports jacket over an artfully aged yellow t-shirt emblazoned with the name of some decades-old Western band Hanai’s pretty sure he doesn’t listen to, is Tajima Yuuichirou.

Slouched in his seat, legs spread and taking up a surprising amount of space for someone who’s still so small, one elbow resting on the arm of the sleek red chair to prop up his head and his grin that ventures close to a leer and conveys a slow casualness that’s belied the second Hanai looks at his eyes.

He fidgets, he flirts outrageously with the idols and the hosts. Until one of them asks him one too many vapid questions that have nothing to do with baseball. Then, he bares his teeth in something that _could_ be considered a smile, his words slapping out in a cheery but crude rebuke that must’ve left network censors scrambling. He interrupts the actors and the poor kid from the nature conservancy with non-sequiturs and tasteless remarks. He looks at the expensive watch on his wrist. He takes it off and slips it into a pocket, takes it back out, puts it back on, takes it off and turns it around and around in his hands.

The humanitarian agency kid brings out the (now agitated) oncilla for the hosts and everyone at home to ooh and ah over. He pets it nervously, stumbling through something about rainforests and habitat destruction. The hostess asks if she can pet it, _my, what a darling animal, just like her baby Momo at home._ The kid says yes, she may. The oncilla vehemently says no, hissing and swiping three shallow lines down the hostess’s slender wrist before clawing its way over the kid’s shoulder and making a break for it.

And off like a shot after it goes Tajima, vaulting over his chair too fast for all the cameras but one. They spring onto the stage after him, but Tajima’s already clambering up the backdrop from the idols’ performance. The oncilla leaps; Tajima leaps too, up to grab ahold of a cable that probably shouldn’t be supporting a grown man’s weight, no matter how small, but Tajima is too fast for minor inconveniences like physics and gets a grip on the scaffolding and hauls himself up.

The camera has difficulty following him clearly through the indecent mess of catwalks above the studio, but it’s not long before Tajima seems to have the oncilla cornered. There’s a second or two of him talking to it in a low, calm voice, then hands snapping out to grab the back of its neck and scoop up its butt. He pulls it close against his chest, tucking the jacket around it, then half-stands, casting around for a way to get down. One of the idols pushes an armchair underneath with an excited yell. Tajima jumps down, alighting with grace befitting his furry passenger (who makes a low warning whine.

Finally, amidst applause, beaming what Hanai and anyone who knows him worth a damn knows is his first _real_ smile of the evening, Tajima hands off the oncilla to the gaping kid and throws a thumbs-up at the cameras.

It’s got everything: cute girls, a flashy chase scene, and a misbehaving up-and-coming star player of a high-profile team. There are rumours: drugs, contract disputes and ultimatums, lavish spending, a fight at a Shinjuku club; all the usual accusations with all the usual level of truth, not that the truth matters much. Word of one of the idols possibly having been spotted leaving his hotel the morning after the TV appearance, though this is, of course, more a gaffe on her part than his, supposing it was in fact her swathed in a kerchief and frowning under big sunglasses in those photos.

And yet it is a disposable shame, something quickly forgotten, especially in light of Tajima’s impressive RBIs that season--not seeing enough play yet to be anywhere near breaking any records, but definitely a jersey number to keep an eye on.

Hanai often wonders whether Tajima’s added that number to the long string of digits he used to use as his mail address. Occasionally, he gets as far as typing them into his phone, writing a message, but always ends up hitting delete and banishing his words to the ether where they belong.

* * *

 

Hamada pulls up outside the candy-coloured house, already smiling as he dashes up the steps. The door opens before he even knocks, Mihashi looking for all the world like a little kid waiting to go on a field trip.

“Ready to go?” Mihashi nods, jittery but at least smiling. “C’mon, then!” Hamada jerks his chin towards the car, then clatters down the stairs, Mihashi’s lighter steps following him.

Once they’re settled in his car, Hamada glances over at Mihashi expectantly.

Mihashi plinks back at him, fussing with the strap of the seatbelt.

Hamada’s mouth stretches in an awkward and lightly exasperated smile. Minutes ticking by and Mihashi still silent, he finally asks, “Didja…have somewhere in mind…?”

Mihashi flinches, then looks back at the house. “Not…not really…?”

Hamada sighs, palms pressed against the steering wheel. “Well, you know this area better than me. You have a better idea of fun stuff to do.” He wracks his brain finally coming up with, “Hey, I passed a field on the way here! You could always grab your glove, maybe see if I can borrow--”

“No!” Mihashi stiffens with obvious discomfort at his own outburst, then hunches over, eyes on his hands in his lap. “N-no…no thank you…”

Hamada watches him for a long moment, but Mihashi doesn’t seem disposed to elaborate. Hamada sighs again, then tries for an affable smile. “Hey, look, I’m here to see _you_. We can do whatever you want. Doesn’t gotta be anything super exciting, just…” he releases the barest laugh, “I’d rather not spend the entire time sitting in my car. Spent enough time in here already today.”

A faint guilty flush creeps across Mihashi’s cheeks; he looks like he’s being chastised.

 _C’mon man,_ you _called_ me!

He’s on the verge of saying as much when Mihashi abruptly swings to face him, mouth flapping like a fish for a moment. “B…bu…bu…butterfly!”

It’s great enough to get _some_ kind of positive answer that Hamada’s forgiving of how vague it is. “Butterfly? Is that…a store? Restaurant?”

“No, the… I wanted…! There’s… And…”

Hamada snorts out a laugh, mussing Mihashi’s hair affectionately. “Gotta gimme some more words, here. Maybe some directions.”

Mihashi’s flush returns, but he seems mostly excited now. “B-butterfly garden! There’s… I wanted to visit, ever since…in the…the station, an ad… But there was no one…I couldn’t go with anyone…”

“Sounds good!” Hamada says heartily, starting the car. Though he side-eyes Mihashi. “You didn’t ask a work friend? Sakaeguchi seems like he’d prolly go with you, maybe Abe too…”

Mihashi starts, eyes wide and flush deepening. “I guess…didn’t ask?? I don’t know…if they’d want to go…with _me…_ But I’d! I think I’d like that…a lot…”

 _What the heck is going on with you guys, anyway?_ “Wellp, you sure can’t go anywhere with people if you don’t ask them. How ‘bout we can check it out today, and you can decide if you wanna hit it up again with them? …You know where we’re going?”

They find the place without too much trouble. The garden is housed on the upper story of a large building fronted with several shops. They pay the entrance fee, leave their jackets and Mihashi’s fluffy-looking pistachio-green sweater, and then climb some stairs to reach a wide landing.

Early spring sunlight filters down through the tessellated glass ceiling, catching here and there on vibrant wings. It’s like stepping into another season, the air thick with humidity and a faint musty organic smell underneath the lush scent of plants and flowers. The sound of running water almost obscures the faint hum of the building’s mechanical life. Something that is definitely not a butterfly squawks, making Mihashi jump and Hamada snort with laughter.

They’re almost the only ones here, just a couple of dazed-looking tourists and a woman with two young children. Mihashi eyes them all warily right up until the preschooler marches up to him and demands to be lifted up to check inside a bromeliad for frogs or maybe fairies.

Preschooler seems to decide they’re here for her entertainment. She latches onto them, shrieking delightedly when Hamada swings her up in the air to look at a black butterfly with shocks of red and white (which flies off before she can see it anyway). Her guardian is apologetic and more than a little cautious, but warms significantly when Hamada manages to none-too-quietly tell the kid that he’s a police officer. The preschooler promptly tries to make off with his ID.

Photos on Hamada’s phone of Mihashi crouched down and hiding a smile as the girl insistently and unsuccessfully entices a butterfly onto her finger, its wings like a fuzzy owl’s face. Photos on the woman’s phone, unseen, of the toddler passed out with his own sodden cracker still clutched in his fist, of the preschooler dangling from a railing and Hamada’s hands hovering above her ready to catch. Photos on Mihashi’s phone of butterflies, of the girl’s hands reaching for something out of view, Hamada’s hands open and inviting, the woman’s hands rubbing a cloth over the toddler’s slack cheeks.

The only seriously awkward moment is when the little girl pulls on Hamada’s arm until he crouches down, then solemnly asks if they’re on a date. The woman starts to make dismayed noises, but Hamada laughs before she can undo the sweetness of the question.

“No, kiddo; we’re friends, not boyfriends. But I guess it’s kind of like a friend-date, huh? Like you’re on a family-date.”

“Ohhhhhhh.” She considers for a moment, then pronounces with such firmness that he can’t help but laugh again, “Then Hama-chan and Mihashi-chan will be _my_ dates!”

Mihashi crouches down too, laughter at the corners of his mouth. “I think we have to ask your mummy first. And besides, you’re…” His brows twitch together as though he’s edging around a precipice. “Besides, you’re…you’re only supposed to h-have…”

Hamada shoots to his feet, bowing ludicrously to the woman and asking her in as ridiculously formal and flowery a fashion as he can manage, if they might have the honour of escorting her charge on a date. She laughs, tells him not on his life, policeman or no.

Hamada crouches back down, face grave. “Sorry, sweetheart, she said no. Guess we’ll just have to stay pals, ‘kay?” He raises a hand, and she gives him the solemnest high-five.

He’s sorry to see them go, but just the same, Mihashi’s fidgeting in a way that makes him pretty sure he’s got something to say. And the chance that he’ll say it when there’s an unfamiliar audience is pretty much nil. Hamada subtly directs them to a secluded corner of the garden where a couple of benches overlook a small artificial pond dotted with water lilies. He sits, and after a moment of hesitation, Mihashi joins him.

Hamada stretches his legs out, leaning back against the warm wood to stare up through the foliage into the ice blue above, waiting as patiently as he can manage while Mihashi hiccups out breaths and fusses with the hem of his t-shirt.

“Hama-chan…I… I’m really scared.”

Hamada jumps, then grimaces .

_Geez, in all of this, somehow I forgot about all the monster BS. …Probably because I’d really prefer to._

He takes a deep breath, trying to get into Hamada-the-friendly-police-officer mode. “Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty freaked out, too.” Mihashi looks over at him sharply, as though it were inconceivable that anyone else would be terrified. _You weren’t even there to_ see _the damn thing!_ “You looked at that website, too?”

Mihashi blanches and shakes his head.

Hamada pulls a face. “…Abe not send it to you, or you were afraid to look? It’s not scary, or any--”

“H-Hama-chan, it’s…um…it’s n-normal to sleepwalk, right?”

 _What?_ Hamada blinks at some trailing vines. “Uh…dunno if it’s normal, but it’s not… _not_ normal?? Not like it makes you some kinda freak, or anything.” He glances over at Mihashi, then rubs the back of his head, mussing his loose braid. “You’re scared because of that, too?”

Mihashi nods solemnly, fingers tight on the edge of the bench as he stares down into the pond at their feet. “What about…what about doing…going somewhere weird, when…”

“Well, I think that’s pretty par for the course. The internet can probably tell you as much as I can.” Hamada watches him a minute longer before grumbling out a breath. “Look, you’re… Stuff’s obviously messed up for you, even _beyond_ all this crap, so… Would you fuckin’ _tell_ me, already? You still haven’t even really explained what all happened with uni…”

Mihashi’s shoulders are climbing up towards his ears and he’s starting to shake.

 _God, dealing with you is as impossible as dealing with Kou. Minus all the pinching and hair-pulling._ “I’m not mad, or anything! I just…don’t know how to _help_ . I’m not gonna push you anymore, but if you wanna talk…I’m here.” _If I_ were _dealing with Kousuke, that’d probably just net me some sarcastic jab and an elbow in the ribs._

Another lengthy pause, filled with the soft whir of the pond’s pump and occasional _plip_ of a koi catching a fly. Mihashi inhales deeply a couple times like he’ll start talking, but every time, he subsides.

And then starts snuffling in uneven shallow breaths, shoulders leaping with each one.

Hamada rolls his eyes but leans over, grabbing him in a clumsy side-hug. “Hey, hey. We’re supposed to be having fun here. What would that kid think if she saw you bawling on our friend-date?”

He’s joking, but Mihashi pulls together like it’s a serious concern. “H-Hama-chan is…is right.” He scrubs at his cheeks, then turns to give him a miserable little smile; Hamada squeezes him a little tighter before releasing him with a heavy pat on the back. Mihashi inhales slowly, then gives him a more genuine smile. “Hey, d-does…um…food? There’s…there’s a place that’s good for…for lunch…near…”

“Oh god, yes, I’m _starving_.”

It’s only as they’re collecting their things that it occurs to Hamada that Mihashi’s trying to distract him.

He lets him.

He probably shouldn’t have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this fic is such a slow roll;;;;
> 
> the place they go is based on a place that used to be in my city! It was hot and humid and full of plants and animals I'd never seen anywhere else and basically heaven in babby!zetsu's eyes. I spent more than a little time fantasizing about getting forgotten there on school trips and living out the rest of my days amongst the pygmy marmosets and flamingos...


End file.
